San Francisco

In the morning I called customs, and spoke with a nice guy, who told us to proceed to the Jack London marina at Oakland, where they would send some officers down to the boat to meet us. We were sick of our rough anchorage, so gratefully started the motor and proceeded to chug painfully slowly directly into 30 kts of wind at around 2 kts. We passed under the Oakland bridge and the sea state worsened, leaving us pitching into the swell at half a knot, so I chanced it and increased the revs. We picked up speed and got into the channel, big ships and docks all around, and the engine temp shot up. I took her out of gear and coasted, whilst Oz was below filling her with water. The temperature stabilized and I engaged the engine again, and the whole procedure repeated itself. This happened a few times, but we eventually got to the dock and tied up to something for the first time in a fortnight. I called the customs, our plan being to fuel up, do a couple of jobs, then take the evening tide out. We were in an unusual situation, not having US visas, and not having intended to stop before we got to Mexico. As such we were not allowed to leave the boat, and had to leave as soon as we had fueled up and the weather had improved at sea.

After the customs guys had gone, we prepared to go for fuel immediately, but upon starting the engine, found it seized full of water. This took a fair bit of head scratching and not less than 3 cups of tea before Oz and I decided that we were now right in the shit. However, we stoically concluded that we did have a spare head gasket on board, loads of tools, and nothing better to do with our time....

After a late nights spanner work, the morning saw us ready to start her up again. I had replumbed the cooling system, and was confident it was working, we had changed the oil, and generally given the engine the best chance we could to get us moving again. It was a sign of my confidence (or lack of...) that I briefed all the crew that what was coming up was a bit of a make or break situation, and that come what may, we were heading out under the Golden Gate bridge today. The plan was to go and fuel up, leaving the engine running, as I guessed that once stopped it might not go again without major work, and get down the 3-4 miles of the Oakland channel which was very busy, and at present windless. Once out, we had a bit more freedom to sail, although with the tide turning against us in a couple of hours, I did not much fancy drifting around San Francisco Bay with all the busy ferries and strong currents for too long.

We cast off, got ourselves fueling up, then watched the engine temperature begin to rise. And rise. And rise. There was plenty of water in the oil and my fears proved well founded, there was something pretty bad wrong with the engine, bad enough that Oz and I could not fix it on board anyway. What to do now.....? Go back to the marina and appeal to the customs guys for help? The US has a reputation for being hard on immigrants without the required paperwork....My mind cast back 15 years or so ago, when sailing with my brother South from England to Portugal on another old boat. Being totally becalmed within sight of the shore for a few days, our patience gave out, and we made it up the Tagus to Lisbon, with Robin merrily throwing buckets of seawater over the engine to keep it cool. It worked then, and I saw no reason it wouldn't work now, so we started a chain and with Regis piloting her down channel, Oz and I fussing over the motor, and the other boys passing buckets, we gingerly set off for Mexico.

We got out of the narrow channel, which was the bit which by far bothered me the most, as if we had conked out we would have had to have called for assistance, as we were in a busy channel where we couldn't just anchor. I kept on popping up from below to hoist sails. The main, jib and staysail went up, and approaching the bridge the wind picked up, we set the topsail and were really starting to go. We kept the motor running, as it improves your course to windward greatly, and we tacked out under the bridge. We were just clearing the shipping lane on a Southwesterly course, and I was about to call for the engine to be killed, when Oz beat me to it, shouting up that the engine was turning a funny colour. You could also hear by its burble it was not happy. So the old Perkins had done its job, if it proved to be the last thing it did, it was certainly a good thing! We were now headed just west of south on a beam reach force 4-5, great Anne Marie weather, making really good speed. We would get a good offing from the shore, as we were now engineless, and the relentless westerly swell which obviously makes California such a good surf spot was no friend of ours. The forecast showed that if we could make good speed in the first day and a half, we would carry the north west winds right down to Mexico, but if we did not maintain our speed so well, we would become becalmed for a couple of days. The sun shone, the sea was blue, we had a following breeze and were making 9 knots or so with the topsail up. The Anne Marie sped through the sea leaving hardly a ripple as she powered from crest to crest, occasionally sending a cloud of spray into the air as she nudged a wave aside. She had first done this in 1911, 105 years ago, with no engine fitted, and she was sailing now as though she was still a wee whippersnapper, enjoying every puff, heeling playfully to the breeze, and galloping south across the ocean.

---