SERIOUS FUN

In the course of my job as a sailing instructor, I am out on the Bay or the ocean four or five days a week. In the 20 years I’ve been doing this, I can recall less than a half-dozen times when I was the only sailboat on the Bay.

Photo by Joel Williams

By Captain Ray
Published: May, 2008 

There are many people sailing many kinds of boats, for many different reasons, all year long here on the Bay. With this much sailing happening around, it is not surprising that we get a bit complacent.

We tend to forget that sailing (and especially ocean sailing) is on a list of human endeavors that I call serious fun. That list includes activities like climbing high mountains and riding large animals. Even with proper training, good equipment, and a great deal of experience, the possibility of injury, or even death, exists. It just seems to be in the nature of the human species for some of us to want to push the envelope from time to time. It’s actually quite amazing how many different ways we have come up with to do this.

Just over 11 miles southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge, there is a buoy anchored in about 100 feet of water. It marks the start of the Main Ship Channel that guides vessels through the shallows surrounding the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The buoy’s official name is the San Francisco Approach Lighted Horn Buoy SF. The buoy is commonly referred to as the light bucket or lightship, because years ago there was actually a lightship permanently anchored there, with a crew living aboard to keep the light shining.

The Doubled-Handed Lightship Race, held every year, starts inside the Bay, goes out the Gate, around this buoy, and then finishes back inside the Bay. Each boat has a crew of two--hence the name double-handed. As you may have heard, this year one of the boats was lost, and both of the crew died. The boat had rounded the buoy and was on her way back into the Bay when she just disappeared. The next day, the body of one of the crew was found washed up onto the San Mateo coast; the other has not been recovered. Floating debris was found and parts of the boat have been located on the sea bottom.

Sailing blogs have been full of speculation as to what happened, what the weather and sea conditions were during the race, whether the condition of the boat was adequate for the conditions, etc. Some people have suggested that the race committee should have called off the race, or that is was too early in the year to hold a race that goes out the Gate.

I’m not going to try to find a cause or place blame. I don’t know what happened to that boat; at this point, no one knows for sure what happened. It is all speculation, and it is likely that we will never know what happened. What we do know is that two men are gone and their families grieve. What we also know is that even with proper training, good equipment, and a great deal of experience, the possibility of injury or death exists. We have all been reminded that sailing is serious fun.