I didn’t set an alarm to leave at 0600 on Friday because I was waking up early all week. The super calm mooring at Catalina Harbor let me sleep until 0630. I woke up and headed topside to see if Coconutz left yet. Eric had some trouble with his outboard so we stayed later until I loaned him our bolt cutter to cut the lock off his engine. We set sail and left them in Catalina Harbor.
The trip home was uneventful. The wind was coming from the northwest, blowing us straight downwind to San Diego on a bearing of 110 degrees. As we sailed down Catalina I had the boat on a broad reach, and then we turned right towards home. The wind was very constant in bearing, only changing five or ten degrees. The seas were pretty calm too, we rode 2′ swells for most of the day, sailing at 4-5 knots. When the wind picked up and was gusting to 15 the seas were about 3′ and we were pushed up to 6 knots with a max speed of 7 knots by the GPS.
Sully didn’t mind the trip at all, check the video of us sailing down past Catalina Island.
Natalie and Sully taking it easy in the salon on the trip home
I tried to use the Monitor windvane self steering on the trip home, but the mizzen boom was in the way and the vane kept hitting it. I later figured out that I can move the mizzen off to one side to give the windvane the clearance it needs for downwind sailing. We just used the electric autopilot and it kept us right on course.
The Monitor windvane.
We ended up sailing for most of the day. I took the sails down after sunset when our speed fell to under 3 knots. We motored in to San Diego Bay after midnight and were back at Pier 32 Marina around 0300.
