Yacht sinks outside Golden Gate

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Generally you do not want to leave the bay on an ebb tide due to the bar crossing and the nw winds. Prime time is at slack water or on the flood tide. Waves will be much smaller over the bar.

Generally? I have had some of the best daysails by leaving the same marina that unfortunate skipper did, sailing out on an ebb to the Shipping Channel and back on the flood. Of course, time of year, sea state, the condition at the bar (from noaa forecasts), etc. all must be taken into account.

[MarkSF]

Look at the pics of the boat, looks like it's in the middle of a headsail change. So the simplest explanation is that he fell overboard, and after sufficient time he drowned. Then the body will go back and forth with the ebb and flood, until it's found.

Meanwhile the boat either fore-reached or just drifted, until it hit the rocks near the GG bridge. At some point the EPIRB got enough water under it to deploy automatically.

10 mysterious hours accounted for.

[Steve1944]

Very sad.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Meanwhile the boat either fore-reached or just drifted, until it hit the rocks near the GG bridge. At some point the EPIRB got enough water under it to deploy automatically.

10 mysterious hours accounted for.

It was not "near" The GG Bridge, it was a half mile inside the Bay and at least a half mile north. "Near", of course, is a subjective term, but one could make the point that the distance from his marina (also mine) is 10.2 nm to the bridge, so being a mile away from it didn't make it "near". Please, check the charts, available on any equipped nav program or Active Captain which has ALL the charts.

10 mysterious hours? Yup.

[Celestialsailor]

Going out the gate can be intimidating to say the least. Here is my approach to the gate when I took off to Mexico. I had radar and tippy-toed out that morning.
It's easy for non SF bay people to speculate but I do the gate at slack tide, wearing safety gear and always a "plan B".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwrqHq0RuOI

[Stu Jackson]

South Tower. Hope you didn't go south of that. What time of year? Rare to have down on the deck fog like that except for winter months.

[Celestialsailor]

Late August, slack tide 7-8am

[gamayun]

One of my trips from SF to Pillar Point Harbor last August (the 25th) was in fog like this, maybe 1/4 mile visibility. Coming back is not always a picnic either. There can be mild conditions outside the gate with spinnakers flying, but once inside, it can be chaos with knock downs and wrapped spinnies. The bay is such a crazy place to learn how to sail. Best to avoid mistakes as much as that is possible - especially like knowing to avoid going inside the South Tower. It's not marked no access, but everyone "just knows." Same with the Potato Patch...

[Lojanica]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Look at the pics of the boat, looks like it's in the middle of a headsail change. So the simplest explanation is that he fell overboard, and after sufficient time he drowned. Then the body will go back and forth with the ebb and flood, until it's found.

Meanwhile the boat either fore-reached or just drifted, until it hit the rocks near the GG bridge. At some point the EPIRB got enough water under it to deploy automatically.

10 mysterious hours accounted for.

Upon contemplation this seems reasonable. Overboard sailing solo changing sails with the change in conditions that occur at the gate then without a radio, in the water, unable to climb aboard he eventually succumbed to the conditions and the boat ended up on the rocks.

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

It was not "near" The GG Bridge, it was a half mile inside the Bay and at least a half mile north. "Near", of course, is a subjective term, but one could make the point that the distance from his marina (also mine) is 10.2 nm to the bridge, so being a mile away from it didn't make it "near". Please, check the charts, available on any equipped nav program or Active Captain which has ALL the charts.

10 mysterious hours? Yup.

We could argue about whether a half mile is near or not until the cows come home. However, it makes no difference to my theory.

[markpierce]

Yellow bluff, straight ahead:

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by gamayun

One of my trips from SF to Pillar Point Harbor last August (the 25th) was in fog like this, maybe 1/4 mile visibility. Coming back is not always a picnic either. There can be mild conditions outside the gate with spinnakers flying, but once inside, it can be chaos with knock downs and wrapped spinnies. The bay is such a crazy place to learn how to sail. Best to avoid mistakes as much as that is possible - especially like knowing to avoid going inside the South Tower. It's not marked no access, but everyone "just knows." Same with the Potato Patch...

They say if you can sail in the bay, you can sail anywhere in the world. Other that Point Conception, sailing to Mexico proved that for me.
However, the bay sees a lot of visitors that do not have local knowledge of the P-patch or the inside of the South tower which people do transit from time to time without mishap but it is not recommended.

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

They say if you can sail in the bay, you can sail anywhere in the world. Other that Point Conception, sailing to Mexico proved that for me.

I said that to someone from Alaska once and he just scoffed. I've also heard the same from people who sail the Chesapeake. The one time I came around Pt Conception, it was flat smooth. We had timed it to capture the southerly shift. Two nights before there had been gale force warnings. Now I've stopped making this statement

[Steve1944]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

They say if you can sail in the bay, you can sail anywhere in the world. Other that Point Conception, sailing to Mexico proved that for me.
However, the bay sees a lot of visitors that do not have local knowledge of the P-patch or the inside of the South tower which people do transit from time to time without mishap but it is not recommended.

I heard that too, all my life. I started sailing in the SF Bay when I was nine, and thought it was BS; so I'm glad to see it in print by somebody else. Those Farallons were told to me as the most dangerous gardians of the Golded Gate passage; but never seemed all that dangerous. I now realize I was well protected by my Uncle Bill Snyder the Skipper whose sailing prowess was worthy of his victories in the K class races we won all those years onboard the Tilly Whim and Moonlight (not K class) before that. We never seem to know while we're doing it, how fortunate we are, how rare it is to be doing it in the San Francisco Bay.