A Year of Sailing Nirvana

It's been a year since I assumed stewardship of Nirvana.  And what a fantastic year it has been!

My goal was to sail her as much as possible (knowing that meant ignoring the varnish!).  I wanted to have the benefit of really getting to know her and her structural integrity and sailing dynamics. By spring of 2015, I had logged 20+ sailing days and about 300 nautical miles (which is a lot for day sailing about the Bay).  I had done a few over nights at Angel Island, anchored off Sausalito and tied up on the city front.  We sailed in the 2015 Master Mariner's Regatta, placing 3rd in our division, and participated in the Wood Boat Show in June.

It has been a delight.  Nirvana is a 70 year old wood boat, with several generations of repairs and re-fittings, so everything one might say about her comes with plenty of caveats.  But she is structurally sound and shows her age gracefully, with a weep of water here, a bit of rust there and a hairline crack or two - just where you'd expect them.  Her savior, Robert Mickele, from whom I assumed stewardship, did a wonderful job bring her back into form.

Of course there were the usual sailboat things...cracked elbow on the engine cooling water return, which fried the starter motor.  All the fixing of which shifted the oil pressure gage return hose to rub on the fly wheel, sending oil all over the engine compartment.  But that's just regular boat stuff!  The sailing has been great!  

After determining that she was indeed in fine shape, the next goal was to figure out what she'd need to sail up to the Delta during the summer for a week long cruise.  By early summer I added an antique anchor roller (didn't want to mess up that beautiful bow silhouette!), sun shade, asymmetrical spinnaker, vang, extra on-deck ice chest, a rowing dinghy with a sail kit and tiller pilot.  

In July, Pia, Will and I departed Alameda to sail her to the Delta.  While we did have a bit of excitement with the spinnaker (Will had to become a human sail tie on the foredeck), my engineering of the vang was the only thing that fell short (besides my helmsmenship). An accidental jibe broke the boom. Nirvana's 1st major mishap.  Luckily no one was hurt - but a bit shaken as one would expect when something goes wrong on a 44 ft sloop with a 60 ft mast, a 19 ft boom and 700+ sq ft of sail.

It happened at Antioch and the municipal harbor took us in for the night.  I was able to bulk up on supplies the next day at the West Marine and Lowe's, and departed for the final destination, Willowberm Marina.  I repaired the boom during the week we spent at Willowberm.  Geeta and the crew caught up with me by car and we had a couple of nice dealt days.

I sailed Nirvana back single handed and got caught a bit unexpected in the slot (between Angel Island and Treasure Island) with 25+ gusts and a full main on a tight reach. Everything held!

I single handed her down to Redwood City for an overnight on Labor Day weekend with a couple of Master Mariner members, sailing back to Sausalito on Sunday so that I could take a friend's father visiting from Italy out on Monday, Labor day.  It  was a perfect day for sailing.  

More boom trouble kept Nirvana grounded for a few weeks in September and October, but we returned to the Bay to close out our first year with two days of sailing.  First a sail to, and overnight at anchor in Sausalito. Then an afternoon sail with some new friends who won a sail as part of school fundraiser.  

I sailed Nirvana back from Sausalito to Alameda under a full moon, with flat water and a steady breeze.  It was one of the most fantastic and magical sails of my life - the perfect ending to a perfect first year.  I'm smitten.  Now time to get to that varnish!

-Bill