Ferox Romps in the Bluewater Bash

It takes a special kind of character to do this — and to want to do this again. “This” was just a short version of what’s possible.

What am I talking about? On Friday, May 6, at 11 a.m., team Ferox — Maggie Scheunert, Evan McNabb, Tina and Russ White, Stephen Stickels, Peter Weigt and I — set out for a 150-mile ocean race. Yes! It was seven of us on 36 feet for one+ day. The San Francisco Bluewater Bash inaugural race was dedicated to Jocelyn Nash, a true pioneer of women’s sailing.

Friday morning greeted us with dense fog and wind in the single digits. We slowly made our way out of the Bay, past the Farallon Islands and toward longitude 124, 75 miles offshore, our turnaround point. The only course restriction was to leave the Farallon Islands to the north. Aside from that, boats were pretty flexible in their own strategy of what latitude to pick when turning around on longitude 124.

Ferox, as a reaching machine, was hoping for our prevailing northwesterly wind direction, which would have made it possible to pick a reaching course out and a reaching course back. Needless to say, with our luck, we had a weather system coming in that started with winds straight from the west. That made any course ideas that included reaching out and back very expensive, so we settled in for the long upwind leg in low winds, bobbing in the waves, with the occasionally weeping mainsail as it collected drops of fog. We did see a ray or two of sunshine in between, but the true blue of the ocean only came into view the next day on the way back.

We ’rounded’ L124 at about 4 a.m. By then, the wind had shifted back around to a more northwesterly direction. It wasn’t quite downwind, but not a good code zero reach either. We decided to throw up our reaching kite to start our run back. Ferox finally started popping out on a plane, setting 10 knots of boatspeed as the new baseline and not a maximum to dream of.

A few changes of sails — reacher to code zero and staysail, main to first reef and back to full — and we’re passing the Farallon Islands on our way back, blue waters and a sighting of what the consensus said was a pod of orcas. Finally, in sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, Ferox is happily surfing the 15-ft waves with max speeds through the water of 19.3 knots — that was an actual observation. Now in 24 knots of wind with the occasional gust to the 30s and screaming along, we decided to reef the main back down to the first reef. Good choice, as moments later the wind settled into 29 knots consistent. Adrenaline and smiles were prevalent on all the faces. Ferox didn’t even think about popping off the plane.

The 29 knots of wind turned into a consistent 32 with gusts up to 36 knots close to Point Bonita. That’s when we decided to switch the code zero and staysail combo out with the jib. The surfing continued toward the finish line at Harding Rock. 26 hours, 4 minutes and 55 seconds after the start, it was suddenly over. It was still blowing in the high 20s in the Bay. Team Ferox got rid of all the sails except the reefed main. We put in a chicken jibe and set course toward home — Sequoia Yacht Club — in anticipation of margaritas and the Cinco… uhm, Floato de Mayo party there. (And most certainly a hot shower at the club first!)

If you’d like to replay the race, check out the tracker — https://yb.tl/SFBR2022.

What you can’t see in the race tracker: We lived well! Our food on board consisted of brownies, muffins, potato skins, hot lunch and breakfast burritos. Pre-made and wrapped in aluminum, they are sooo easy to heat up in the oven and hit the spot! For dinner, we had a freeze-dried selection of food pouches. They were pretty good as well. Overnight, the crew settled into a three-hour shift system. The back cabin starboard and port bunks as well as the salon ones — based on preference — saw good use by the occasional nappers.

One particular moment will probably stick with me for quite a while. Tina was just finishing her shift and I was getting ready for mine. At night, she was sitting in the salon looking at me and smiling. Exhausted, cold, wet, still dressed in all her gear — we called it marshmallow style — which I was just about to don. That basically means adding back the last layer (in my case the sixth layer: foulies, PFD and boots). I didn’t even try to take off any additional layers when falling into a bunk. Putting them back on is such an effort with the boat heeling, rocking, and rolling. Warm and dry was good enough for at least an hour before heading back up and out. It takes a special kind of character, and looking back a few days later, would I do it again? For sure!