Brigantine ‘Matthew Turner’ Is Looking Up: Tall Ship Spring Rituals
Next time you’re hoisting a new jib, bending on a mainsail, or figuring out how to rig your spinnaker, and it all feels like a lot of work — think about the crew of Call of the Sea’s 132-ft brigantine Matthew Turner. The ship’s 7,200 sq ft of square and top sails need to be hoisted 90 feet above deck. But before the crew can even bend on the sails, they first have to raise the wooden square yards (spars) that support them.
For Call of the Sea’s crew and volunteers, this work has become a seasonal ritual. Every winter, the topmast and square yards come down for inspection, repairs, and maintenance, only to be hoisted back up in spring. And it’s all done by hand — no cranes, no mechanical hoists, just a lot of muscle and decades of experience.
The process involves meticulous work — inspecting spars for wear or cracks, servicing and varnishing over 100 wooden blocks, checking and adjusting running rigging, and making repairs on standing rigging that include “worming, parceling, and serving” the rigging for protection against water and the elements.
Not something the average Bay Area sailor has to deal with before the spring season!
Working alongside Matthew Turner’s seasoned crew are dedicated volunteers, many of whom were part of the ship’s original build team and are experienced riggers. And there’s no room for fear of heights — much of this work happens high up on the masts and yards.
So the next time you struggle to get your sails out, bent on, and tuned for the season, just think of what the Matthew Turner crew go through each year to keep their ship in top condition.
Or better yet, take a break — step aboard the Matthew Turner for a sail, sit back, and leave the hard work to the crew and volunteers!
Corinthian Midwinters — A Series for Optimists
Optimistic Corinthian midwinters racers defied the forecasts to show up for the four-race series on Martin Luther King and Presidents Day weekends, despite the projected lack of an essential racing ingredient: wind. This past weekend’s racers were happy not to be racing in the 40 knots blasting the Bay on the Thursday before, but the vacuum the front left behind didn’t leave much for the fleet to work with against the runoff-reinforced ebb.
Saturday morning was pleasant but calm, leaving the race committee to sniff out what little breeze there was and set the shortest windward-leeward twice-around course available. It was a weight-to-leeward kind of day, with boats trying to minimize motion, cursing ferry wakes that disturbed fragile sail shape, and feeling that talking above a whisper would slow you down.
The A-fleet showed the way for the fleets behind, though in the end, it didn’t help at all. The windward mark was upstream against the ebb and near the edge of the shipping channel. As many boats neared the mark, a ship arrived, announcing, “I’m a fully loaded tanker heading outbound; please clear the shipping channel.” Several boats had to fire up engines to get out of the way.
The taller, lighter, faster A-fleet managed to get around the course, while the very optimistic remaining fleets simply tried to hold position across the Bay, hoping a new breeze would materialize from somewhere. It never did. A-fleet had finishers, while all other classes abandoned their futile pursuit when the 4:45 cutoff became impossible to beat.
Sunday looked even worse. The forecast was poor, yet the optimistic fleet once again arrived on the Bay mill pond, believing fate was not going to scuttle racing plans for all four days of midwinters. The AP flag went up and hung limply while PRO Marcus Canestra sent the mark-set boat out in search of wind. It found none. A little hint of a southeasterly emerged, though quickly fizzled. Miraculously, a glimmer of hope arrived with a mysterious light southwesterly coming through the Bridge. The race committee quickly rearranged the windward mark and shortened course on the fly to a half-mile collegiate-style windward-leeward-finish. The 25-minute starting sequence was longer than the race itself. The first classes were finishing as the last classes were starting. But it worked. One race done.
The wind settled in with 6-10 knots, allowing the race committee to boldly choose longer courses for a second race off the actual course sheet, and leaving racers wondering if they were once again going to sail off into a windless oblivion. The two faster fleets survived a Blackaller-to-Blossom run against a strong ebb, while the slower fleets managed laps on an Easom-to-Knox course, with all fleets finishing in a light but steady breeze downwind against the muddy ebb current.
The forecasts for all four days of the two-weekend series never looked promising, though the hope for breeze never faded. The crews showed up and the boats languished near the start line, while the race committee mixed secret potions and chanted various incantations to summon the wind gods. It took a while, but optimism was finally rewarded when that southwesterly appeared, allowing the race committee to stuff in two Sunday races to create a three-race midwinters series. Without those last two races, the already engraved trophies might never have found a shelf to sit on.
The trophies were all duly awarded, and you can see who has them on their shelf at home here.
Congratulations to all who persevered!
Don’t Get Behind — Schedule Your Service With KKMI Today
Holidays to Remember Aboard ‘Synergy’ and ‘Tahu Le’a’
Reading the stories of cruiser Christmases in the December Changes in Latitudes prompted me to write regarding two experiences we had on related topics: celebrations in far-flung locations, though not necessarily Christmas.
The first is a distinct memory of celebrating New Year’s Eve in Gizo, Solomon Islands, in 1988. Gizo is either the second- or third-largest town in the Solomons, with a current population of about 7,000. When Sharon and I were there 36 years ago, it had perhaps 2,000 residents, counting neighboring villages.
New Year’s Eve was spent in the compact but congenial bar of the very small Gizo Hotel, which at that time was either the only such place — or one of few — in town. We joined an eclectic mix of locals, expats, folks from two other cruising boats, and a few other visitors for a remarkably great buffet dinner — what, giant spiny lobster again? OK, we’ll take it! Quoting from our letters home, “The evening was complete with frangipani leis for everyone, including the dog.”
There was a bamboo band for entertainment, with instruments of varying sizes; the musician playing one of the larger, around 5 inches in diameter, created a sound remarkably like a bass fiddle. Again quoting our letter, “The band played cheerful, rhythmic music, with the bamboo instruments carrying the tune, and accompaniment by three guitars, three singers, and the dog.” It was a wonderful way to celebrate the end of 1988 and the start of 1989. A few days later we would leave, heading north to Pohnpei and more adventures.
We don’t have any pictures of that New Year’s Eve, as we were all too busy talking and having fun. But one other memorable fact about Gizo is that it was the first place since leaving California in 1987 where we could actually pull alongside the fuel dock — meaning it was small enough and safe enough for Synergy, the 35-ft boat we had then, and deep enough for our 5.5-ft draft. Everywhere else had commercial fuel docks for large vessels, which were almost all unsafe, or not available to cruisers; or much smaller and shallower fuel docks, used by local skiffs and canoes. In Gizo, the commercial vessels were about the size of Synergy, hence the accessible fuel dock.
The second celebration was a bit smaller, but equally memorable: our younger daughter Kaela’s 10th birthday party, celebrated at anchor in Baker’s Bay, Abaco, Bahamas, in 2006. Participating were our family of four, on our “new” cruising boat (now 25 years old) Tahu Le’a; a family from the cruising boat Symphony with daughters about the same ages as ours, with whom we had been cruising off and on; and Scott and Kitty Kuhner from the Valiant 40 Tamure, whom we had met in the Marquesas back in 1988!
Latitude 38’s Spring Crew List Party Is Back!
Join us for our first spring crew list party in 5 years!
Bay View Boat Club, Thursday April 3, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets and info can be found here.