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Historic Sunsail Afternoon with Mission Beacon Center Kids

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Friday was literally a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Sharing five Sunsail First 40’s with 25 Mission Beacon Center kids: awesome.  Watching the space shuttle Endeavour fly over Angel Island and Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Mason hill: historic.

 

Treasure Island Sailing Center works in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families to provide on-the-water options for learning life’s lessons on Clipper Cove.  Sunsail’s San Francisco operations in Sausalito provided both programs with a sunny, breezy two-hour sail on San Francisco bay in brand new First 40’s, made possible by five professional sailors who donated their afternoon.

Mission Beacon Center, part of the San Francisco Beacon Initiative and one of many SFDCYF programs, uses the Everrett Middle School as a center of activity for surrounding neighborhoods. TISC supports thier programs with sailing lessons and after school activities.

 

My job Friday afternoon, along with four volunteers from the Cal Sailing Team, was to work as an on-the-water host and crew aboard the Sunsail First 40’s (OK, not really a job; more like a super opportunity to sail cool new boats, teach kids about sailing and water safety, and hang out on SF Bay !).  Of course the bonus was the one-day delay in Endeavour’s visit to the Bay Area announced on Wednesday; I simply took the 7:45 bullet train from San Jose and hung out at Fort Mason for the fly-over, then pedaled over to Pier 40 for our 2pm sail.

These 25 kids and 5 chaperones would not have had this opportunity without the gracious support from Sunsail’s Sausalito General Manager Travis Lund who along with fellow sailors Charlie Bogue, George Fay, Jim Hancock and Ted Thornton donated their Friday afternoon and the Cal Sailing volunteers Katelynn Wiley, Martin Gibson,  Michael Lebow, and Saul Rosen.

From On The Cove (on this voyage from Pier 40), Dave G

In the wake: Here’s a few more pictures from our awesome, historic day on the bay.

Endeavour Over North Tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our captain Ted Thornton arrives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safety briefing before loading

 

 

 

 

 

 

Side by side heading toward Angel Island

 

 

 

 

 

AC 45 Prada up close

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7+ knots VMG heading toward Angel Island

 

 

 

 

Everyone got to drive a Sunsail First 40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture Perfect Monday

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Monday’s plan was simple: check email, drive to TI, apply penetrating oil to the electric hoist cover bolts, lead a noon conference call, loosen up the pesky bolts, fix a balky trailer hitch and head home before the 5pm traffic.

Skipper’s Gift made a great work platform, however if you’re a sailor, you won’t be surprised to hear that stubborn bolts don’t always free up as easily as hoped, so “beating rush hour traffic” was not in the cards.

My delayed departure provided an opportunity to wave to Oracle 5 team on their way “home from the office”, connect with a few members of the California Golden Bears Sailing Team and take a couple hundred pictures of FJ’s in Clipper Cove with Bay Bridge and Oakland as a backdrop. 

The collegiate season has started, and the Cal team practices here M/W/F (next year I promise to visit “Team Racing Tuesday” so I’ve covered all the daily race events). 

On Monday I was able to combine both “f8 and be there” with “f28 and hold it steady” using the awesome camera I received from the PrimeTime team when I retired from Synopsys.  Here are 58 pictures of Cal Sailing Team On Clipper Cove.  NOTE: password to view these pictures is “GoBears”.

The Cal students are great team players on and off the water. Their volunteer work at Treasure Island Sailing Center is greatly appreciated –

Thanks for all you do for TISC and the Sailing Community!

 

 

 

From On The Cove, Dave G

In the wake:

Many folks have asked about the huge floating dry dock around the corner from TISC.  Here are two links with additional information:

Declassified $170million Cold War Stealth boat called the Sea Shadow is snapped  up for $2.5million… but you can’t take it for a spin round the bay
Read more

Well That’s It: The Bay Area’s Formerly-Secret U.S. Navy “Sea Shadow” Stealth Ship Auctioned for Scrap Today

 

On Boston Pond

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Boston is a great place to visit anytime – what’s not to like about their sports teams (sorry Yankees fans), art museums, restaurants, theaters, the new Boston Harborwalk, the red brick Freedom Trail and history galore!  Summer is even better with many sailing venues available to out-of-town visitors on the Charles River, Boston Harbor and the Harbor Islands.

CBI was chartered in 1946

During my family visit to Boston two weeks ago I spent a day visiting Boston Sailing Center at Lewis Wharf, Courageous Sailing Center in the Navy Yard next to the USS Constitution and Community Boating on the Charles River.  My objective was to connect with these great teams in person and  find out what’s working for them especially related to their volunteer programs.  Piers Park Sailing was a pioneer in adaptive sailing programs and I hop to visit their team during my next visit.

Many of their most successful programs – especially the racing programs – are driven exclusively by the volunteers who sail on the Charles River and Boston Harbor. These centers benefit from sailors of all levels of skill and all ages, most minutes away from their docks via sidewalks, subways or water shuttles.

Thanks and a tip-of-the-hat to Wade Edwards at BSC, Dave DiLorenzo at CSC and Charles Zechel and Andrew Alletag at CBI for their openness, inputs and suggestions.  They share our common passion for sailing; their goals are like ours – provide learning tools and access for kids and adults to get them on the water safely and at reasonable cost.  And they were of course envious of our 12 month sailing season that serves as a Launching Point for New Horizons

Several TISC tenants responded to our first blog and suggested a central calendar for upcoming events that may affect access.  That’s in the works on the TISC website.  For now check out this List of Upcoming TISC Events and Opportunities.

From On The Cove, Dave G

In the wake:

When visiting Boston, load your Charlie Card and use public transportation.  My feet and public transportation got me from my son’s condo in Somerville to all three sailing venues and back on a gorgeous sunny day in the 70’s. Here’s a few handy links for Buses, Subways and Harbor Shuttles in Boston.

 

Thursday Night On Clipper Cove

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Watching 11 Vanguard 15s and 6 Lasers enjoying gusty winds on Clipper Cove brought back memories from our 470 days on Pontoosuc Lake in Western Mass.  Both have tall, unique postcard settings.  Bay Bridge towers and Alameda loading cranes backstop the cove; Mt. Greylock provides a postcard setting for Pontoosuc.

The loading cranes inspired George Lucas to design the Star Wars Battle Bots. The Pontoosuc story can be as simple as the Indian name “falls on the brook” or can lead you to an old Indian Legend.

We ran a regatta for forty seven 470s on that tiny lake half the size of Angel Island – complete with a gear-buster lightning storm one day and fluky mountain winds the next.  Nothing like our predictable San Francisco Bay breezes!

I signed on as Thursday’s “grillmeister” to connect with the Vanguard 15 and Laser sailors to get their views and suggestions about sailing at TISC.  Nick Adamson also stopped by – a bonus to those who know him and those newer sailors who met him for the first time.  He was one of the TISC and Vanguard 15 Fleet 53 founders.

Hearing about the origins of the center firsthand was a good reminder that we’re fortunate to have such great racing just 5 minutes off the Treasure Island Sailing Center dock in a safe harbor ideal for introducing kids to sailing and life lessons.  What a great place for launching new horizons!

From the cove, Dave G.

In the wake:

Clipper Cove offers close-up race viewing right from the shore. Before cranking up the grill I took photos of all the racers.  They’re here:  Dave G photos from Svendsen’s Thursday Night Vanguard 15 and Laser series

 

Welcome to On Clipper Cove

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In May ’12 I joined the Board of Directors at Treasure Island Sailing Center. After a couple of decades in Electronic Design Automation I’m transitioning to the world of non-profits. Trading in my .doc, .ppt and .xls tools for G/flex, sandpaper and sunscreen – and WordPress :).

I’m already enjoying my time with a great team whose vision is to get all the kids in San Francisco on the water and into sail boats. In my case that means hands-on boat repair and maintenance, sharing Skipper’s Gift with kids and their families, and working with TISC tenants to provide them with an additional resource as we work together to grow our community of service-minded sailors.

The passion of the TISC founders over ten years ago provided us with a platform to sail, race and share the best location in the world with those not fortunate enough to sail solo. Most who sail from TISC undertand the crucial role volunteers play here; not all are aware the grants we receive and the land we use are available because of our volunteers and our non-profit status.

I look forward to meeting more of our tenants here at TISC as well as the college students and parent volunteers who keep us full and by on the starboard tack. If you have questions about sailing in and around Clipper Cove, comments specific to our space at TISC and ESPECIALLY suggestions for upcoming blogs please let me know.

From On the Cove, Dave G  ( DaveG @ OnClipperCove.com)

In the wake:

Sailors often ask our staff about the weather in the Bay. Here’s one of my favorite weather links because it also tracks the gusts we use for “tens” on the way home from Angel Island: San Francisco Sailing Weather.   Which ones do you count on? Send them along!