The above video shows a century’s worth of history. It has been condensed into one easy to watch minute. The video was created by Graduate student Ben Schmidt and it shows an animated map of Spanish, Dutch, and English journeys across the ocean from 1750 to 1850.
The video reveals fantastic amounts of historic information about the travel by ship during America’s colonial days and many of the years years afterwards. Each of the countries have dedicated routes, and naval traffic can be seen changing each month and I find it interested what routes where chosen each month throughout the history of sailing. We still plan many voyages on the dates that were used then.
There is a longer 12 minute video that was created by Schmidt that shows a lot more data a lot more clearly. If you watch closely, the video shows a number of historic events. For example, you can see a definite change in trade in the United States around the Declaration of Independence. Further, you can see the 1796 Battle of Saldanha Bay between the Dutch and the British, and Captain James Cook’s voyage through the South Pacific from 1772 to 1775.
The Department of Boating and Waterways (DBW) is critical to the future of boating in California. DBW funds launch ramp construction, loans for marina construction, construction of boating safety centers, boating safety and law enforcement programs, abandoned vessel removal, public outreach programs, and even weed control in boating areas!
Use the information below to write a letter or send an email to everyone you might know! You can also use the draft letter at the end of this document, but remember the more personalized the letter the better. 
The Story Sailboat had an amazing shakedown three day cruise aboard our Santana 22 named Sailboat Jerry. The wind was perfect almost everyday for some kind of sailing. Our route took us all over the South Bay, into San Francisco Bay and back down to Redwood City. We saw just about all of the sights that we wanted to see, ate amazing food, and met wonderful people, and the boat couldn’t have performed better. With all of these experiences, I’ve been trying to figure out which story to tell. After I thought about it for a while, I decided I wanted to the story of the completely inaccurate wind forecasts we got on Monday morning.
While we sailed from Angel Island, around Alcatraz, and into Pier 39, we experienced some fantastic winds that were just enough for us to fly our 120 jib, and not reef our main. Our rail just kissed the waterline a handful of times and the boat screamed through the water. We got into Pier 39 just in time for the wind to really pick up and I’d venture to guess that throughout the evening the wind had gusts up to 40ish knots and the small boat was rocking pretty hard all night with an average wind speed of over 20-25 knots. The problem didn’t arise until the morning when we were getting ready to leave.
As part of the plan to put together the actual 501(3)c for the Story Sailboat I need to get my captain’s license. I have enough days at sea since I’ve been sailing since I was 19, but I want to make sure that I have the knowledge to pass the Coast Guard Test after the class in April. My plan is to keep track of a lot of the resources I use to learn what I need to learn before taking the test. I’m going to record a lot of that here so that any of you who may be planning on getting your captain’s license can learn from my failures or my successes. Hopefully, they will be more successes than failures but we’ll see. Here’s a little background information about getting your captain’s license to start;
Since it was such a gorgeous day and the 49ers failed at making it to the Super Bowl, we decided we should just go sailing instead. My crew for this trip was Jo, my longtime friend and crewmember Renae, and the awesome librarian and good friend Andrea. We met up at the docks at Redwood City and got Sailboat Jerry (the Santana 22) ready with the 120 jib and fresh tank of gas for the outboard plus the required snacks and drinks. Unfortunately, it was looking like it was going to be another day of no wind and little expectations of anything exciting happening except to mess around in a boat for the day (which is always a great way to spend the day). 
After an hour or two of drifting, we sailed under the San Mateo bridge and remembered that it was, in fact, still SuperBowl Sunday and the Coyote Point Yacht Club would be having an event. We pulled in and walked up to the bar and had a great time eating and drinking. The super bowl hadn’t started yet so Andrea and I decided to walk down the docks looking at a boat for sail that she wanted. It was LM 30 and in great condition, but they’re asking $25,000 for it. We looked at the boats until Jo and Renae came back from the yacht club and told us we had to go since it was getting late. So we motored back for a couple of hours through the sunset and back into port and we completely missed the super bowl. I heard it was good, but our day was better.
We spent the night in Pier 39 after eating at my favorite restaurant in Fisherman’s Warf called Nick’s Lighthouse. It’s not my favorite just because of the sailboats on the walls as Jo will try to convince you, but also because the food is excellent and reasonably priced. And of course, there is nothing like an ice cold beer after a long day of sailing. We had a wonderful meal of Crab Caesar salad, lobster bisque, the obligatory clam chowder, crab cakes, and a really great seafood pasta. It wasn’t even that expensive!
When we woke up in the morning we planned on leaving right away. Of course, our outboard had other plans and wasn’t about to get up that early. We tried to get it to start for over an hour and since I have no idea what could have been wrong because honestly, and I don’t know enough about two-stokes to make a diagnosis, anything I did to try to fix it was pretty futile. All I know is that its either a problem with gas, spark, or air but getting any of those right is beyond me. We wound up getting a taxi to take us to the nearest Kragen Auto Parts to try for a new spark plug. The nearest one being about 6 miles away and making this one of the most expensive spark plugs I have ever bought! Anyway, that wasn’t even the problem.
The problem is, I’m an idiot. I completely missed that the kill switch has a safety clip that holds out the switch until its removed. Once the clip is removed the switch is turned on and the engine won’t start. The previous owners had lost the clip and were using a zip tie to hold the switch out. I thought you had to push it in to start, not pull it out, so I had taken the zip tie off thus causing all the problems. Luckily, our boater neighbors had come down and explained what was wrong or I would have been there all week. We used a piece of line and tied it around the switch, pulled it tight until the switch was out and then tied the other end to the handle so that it kept it out. The engine started on the first pull. I am an idiot sometimes.
We spent this last weekend sailing the Santana 22 from Redwood City to San Francisco. We didn’t really plan on doing this sailing trip. It was one of those last minute ideas and it was amazing!
Unfortunately, I eventually had to re-start the noisy Mercury 3.5 horsepower outboard that is probably 15-20 years old and get us moving again. The problem was that it wouldn’t start. I yanked on the pull cord until I was sore and tired and nothing was happening. After getting pretty frustrated, Jo handed me another drink and calmed me down from beating the outboard with tiller. I relaxed for about 20 minutes and the engine started on the next try. We guessed it just needed a break.
We pulled into the marina and just as I was nearing in on the slip, the outboard died. We had just enough momentum to Captain Ron it into the slip. There never seems to be anyone around when I do something like this. Yet, if I was to run aground, I’m sure there would be a whole ferry boat of people watching. Anyway, it turned out that I was in the wrong slip, but since I couldn’t get the engine started, I had to scully the boat all the way around the docks to the correct slip on the other side and it was a example of perfection in boating (of course, nobody was around to see it).
