San Francisco Bay History

Until 1769, San Francisco Bay was known only to the Penutian Indians and other tribes of northern California. The Spanish had sailed the coast of what is now California from the 16th century. They had charted the Farallon Islands just off shore from the Golden Gate. Sir Francis Drake sailed past the Golden Gate in 1579 and anchored just north in a small, protected bay now called Drakes Bay. It was not until the late 1760's that the Spanish attempted to settle northern California, and then only because of a rumor that the Russians were expanding their North American holdings by moving south. In 1769, Caspar de Portola led a party northward from San Diego, their destination being Monterey Bay. They passed this bay without recognizing it and moved on north. A scouting party lead by Francisco de Ortega sighted San Francisco Bay from the hills of the southern peninsula, making this great bay one of the few that was discovered by land and not by sea. In 1775 the vessel "San Carlos" under the command of Juan Manuel de Ayala sailed into the bay. Some authorities say that Sir Francis Drake did sail into the bay. But if he did, it has not been found recorded in any of his logbooks that have been found. Any visitor to the bay area will recognize why anyone sailing up the coast could easily miss the bay entrance as the Golden Gate is normally hidden by fog.

Geologically, the bay is a drowned valley, which drains the great central basin of California. The Golden Gate, the entrance into the bay from the Pacific Ocean, is 1 to 1.7 miles wide and about 3 miles long. The bay varies from 5 to 13 miles in width and stretches its two arms northeast about 40 miles through San Pablo Bay, the Carquines Strait, and Suisun Bay; and south about 35 miles. The total surface area is approximately 400 square miles. The Golden Gate channel is 382 feet deep. The center of the bay is from 40 feet to 150 feet deep while 70 percent of the bay is no more than 18 feet deep.

San Francisco Bay is known as one of the best sailing areas in the world. If you look at the annual average wind speed in San Francisco you would wonder why, as the average wind speed is only 9.1 mph. Don't believe it. I have seen the wind instrument on my sail boat hit a steady 25 knots a lot of times and on a few occasions it hit over 40 knots. And then at times I have seen it so flat calm that if you wanted to go anywhere at all you had to motor. And if there was anything that I didn't want to do, it was start the engine on my sailboat. These wind speeds are not caused by the bay or surrounding mountains but by the Sacramento Valley. There are few breaks in the coastal mountains along this part of the Pacific Ocean to allow the wind to pass through. The largest break is the Golden Gate. In the summer the Sacramento Valley heats up to temperatures in the high 90's and sometimes over 100 degrees. This hot air rises and is blocked by the high Sierra Nevada Mountains from moving east. This rising of hot air draws the cool air from the Pacific Ocean into the interior and the largest gap it has to come through is the Golden Gate. All sailors on the bay know that when the valley is hot there is going to be good sailing on the bay. And any sailor on the bay will tell you "The wind don't blow. The valley sucks."

Sailing San Francisco Bay

I became interested in sailing because of a promotion to a supervisor's job within the company I worked for. This was the fist time in my life that I had a job with working hours from 8 to 4 with weekend days off. No more shift work and no more rotating days off. At the time I was driving a Volkswagen camper and spent most of my days off up in the mountains camping and hiking. One of the ladies in the office and her husband owned an Airstream trailer. They found out I had the Volkswagen camper and invited me to meet them at a lake in the Valley the next weekend and do some fishing. This was the beginning of a wonderful relationship that has lasted for some 40 years and in many weekend fishing trips. We would get up early and go fishing for about three hours or so, come back to our camp site, have breakfast, then sit around until about four in the afternoon and go fishing again until almost dark.

That sitting around doing nothing sort of got to me. I am the type person that has to be doing something all the time and just sitting around talking is not one of them. One day I was in a sporting goods store looking for something new in fishing gear when I spotted a small sailboat over against the wall. The boat was nothing but a flat piece of foam shaped like a boat, about 13 feet long with a metal pipe as a mast, a main sail, a jib sail, a small board that you put down through the bottom of the boat as a keel, and a rudder. But it didn't cost much. I picked it up and it was not heavy at all. One person could easily handle it. I didn't think anymore about it until I was in another store looking for a magazine to take with me on the next fishing trip. There was a sail magazine there and on the cover in big letters was "Learn to Sail". You guess it. I bought the magazine, took it with me on the next fishing trip and read it from cover to cover. The next week I went back and got that small sailboat.

Now, after breakfast on the next fishing trip, I had something to do. My friends made fun of me, telling me that a big guy like myself would never fit on that piece of nothing and make it go. It took some time to get it rigged like the instructions said, but I finally had it in the water and ready to go. Thank gosh I was in a small cove and there was not much wind. When I sat down on the boat it really sank into the water. But, I moved around until I had myself pretty well balanced on the boat and started to paddle toward the lake. All of a sudden some wind caught the sails and they started shaking like crazy. I pulled the sails in and that little old boat just took off. I didn't go more than 20 feet and over I went. My friends up on the bank were about to bust their sides laughing. After a while I finally got the hang of those sails and could make that little old boat really move through the water. But I was getting too far out in the lake and knew I had to stay close to shore. So, here I go with my first tack. And over I went into the water. It took a little time to get this tacking thing down. Moving my body to the other side of the boat, while making the sails change sides at the same time, keeping the rudder in the correct position and keeping the boat moving through the water took some time. But before the weekend was over I had it all down pat and could really make the boat sail. It was really fun. And the most fun part was seeing how far you could get the lea side of the boat into the water before you tipped over. Needless to say, I was hooked.

The first big sailboat I bought was a 26 footer. It was on a trailer but I got a slip in a marina in the Oakland Estuary and kept it in the water all the time. It had an outboard motor that was built into the bottom of the boat. This was another learning experience. I had to motor out of the Estuary to just south of the Bay Bridge. I would sail up to and around the Bay Bridge but I could not get up enough nerve to go north of the bridge for a long time. Finally, I built up enough confidence in myself that I was sailing north of the Bay Bridge all the time.

About two years later I went to a Boat Show in Oakland and saw a 30 footer that I just fell in love with. It would sleep six people, if you used all the space, had a head with a shower, a galley and a diesel engine. Needless to say, I had to have it. After much negotiation, it became mine. I had to pick up the boat in Richardson Bay just north of Sausalito. Very early on the big day, my friend and I left Oyster Point Marina in the south bay to deliver my boat and pick up the new one. Every thing was wrong for this trip. There was no wind. The tide was coming in and the little outboard could not fight the tide. We hugged the shoreline trying to stay out of the tide and finally made it north of the Bay Bridge. By this time the tide had changed and was outbound. We had to fight the tide crossing the bay to keep from being swept out under the Golden Gate. We got to the point were we could see the marina that we were going to and ran out of gas. Still no wind and we just sat there. Finally a powerboat came along heading in that direction and they gave us a tow. After getting the paper work all done, it was time to take the new boat away from the dock. The salesman came on board to check us out. He suggested we leave the dock and get our check out on the water. This was fine with us. My friend was on the wheel and the salesman and I moved around the boat talking about each item, what it was for, how to use it and how to set the sails. We also checked out the rigging and just about everything else on the boat. I think the salesman just wanted to get away from the office and out on the water for it sure took him a long time to check us out. Finally, we dropped him off at the dock and we were on our own. After getting out into the bay I told my friend to take the wheel and I would raise the sails and we would see just how this thing sailed. I got the sails up and adjusted and we caught some wind and started to move out. I told him to shut down the engine and sail the boat. I stayed up on the forward deck to make sure all was ok and then went below to make sure all was ok there. I finally got back up on deck and told him I would take the wheel and sail for a while. We sailed across the bay and under the Bay Bridge headed back to Oyster Point Marina. After we got under the Bay Bridge the wind became calm so we cracked up the engine and motored the rest of the way to the marina. It was very late when we got back and my friend went to call his wife. She was worried sick about us and glad to hear that we had made it. We got the boat all tied up and the sails put away and then went to his house. After a few drinks and reliving the day again, my friend looked at me and said. "Do you realize what happened out on the bay today?" I asked him what he was talking about. He said he was the first one to sail my new boat and had beaten me to that. I laughed, and told him I had too much on my mind to even worry about it. To this day, he still rubs it in that he sailed my new boat before I did.

While I was at Oyster Point Marina, two friends came down to go sailing on a Sunday morning. It was a cloudy day and I had been listing to the weather forecast before my friends arrived. There was no rain in the forecast but the winds were forecast to be in the 20 mph range in the afternoon. When my friends arrived, I told them this and ask if they really wanted to go out. They said yes, that we could come back in early before the strong winds hit. Well,the forecast was wrong. The strong winds hit about 1 o'clock. At that time we were south and east of my marina and had to sail into the wind to get home. The waves were breaking over the bow. I suggested we go into a marina that was close by, have lunch, and wait for the wind to die down. We had a nice quite lunch and waited. And waited. And waited. The wind just did not seem to die down. One of the guys had a date that night and I told him I would get him a cab to go back to my marina if he wanted to. He said no, that he would stay and help us get back. Well, it finally got to the point where it didn't look like the wind was going to die down at all. I reefed the main sail and brought out what I called my storm sail, which was really a very small jib. We motored out of the marina and headed into the wind. The boat was really bouncing around a lot so I cut the engine off and went under sail. The boat settled down and started to just plow through the waves. The waves would break over the bow and come all the way back to were we were sitting in the stern. I couldn't believe how good the boat was handling and knew we would have no problem getting back. The boats coming down the bay with the wind had all their sails down and under motor power. They were bouncing all over the place in the waves. They just stopped what they were doing and stared at us like we were something from outer space. We waved and acted like we were having the best of time and really enjoying the ride. I have often wondered what they though of us crazies. We made it back to my marina ok, but soaked to the skin. What a day.

This was really the beginning of my sailing life. Now I had a very good boat, one that I could handle by myself and feel safe with either on the bay or out in the ocean. I moved from Oyster Point to Coyote Point Marina just south of the airport. This was a very nice marina with a short channel from the bay into the marina. There was a big hill on the west side of the marina that blocked the strong afternoon wind, so that once you were in the marina and behind the hill there was no wind. I could sail into the marina, drop my sails and drift into my slip. Never start the engine. It was great!

During the summer I was sailing every weekend. Either by myself or with friends. We lived for the weekend when the tide was going out in the morning. If we could leave around 8 A.M. on an outgoing tide we could sail all the way out under the Golden Gate and catch the incoming tide and be back in the marina by 8 P.M. Now that was a day of good sailing. Of course, a good strong wind, if there was one, not only aided us in doing this but also added to the thrill of sailing. One time we were caught just outside the Golden Gate in slack tide and no wind. The swells were really big, The boat next to you would go down on a swell while you would be going down on another swell and you could barely see the top of their mast. All you could do is sit and wait for the tide to change and the wind to start blowing. That is unless you wanted to start the engine and motor in. No way. Coming home in the afternoon was always good sailing. After passing Hunter's Point, the wind really kicked up. Sometimes in the 20 to 25 knot range. It was a beam reach to the marina, the best point of sailing, with a light chop that let you know that the boat was really under way.

I have to admit that there were times when I was scared stiff out on that bay. I would ask myself what in the world was I doing and how did I get myself in this fix. But I always came out of it ok. It just put a few more gray hairs on my head.

I kept the boat after I was transferred to Texas. I was going to ship it down to the gulf but then a hurricane came through and I wondered what in the world I would do if the boat was in a hurricane and I couldn't get to it. I flew back to San Francisco almost every weekend to go sailing, living on the boat for the weekend. But that soon became a real hassle. Finally I put the boat up for sale and sold it. I think that was one of the saddest days of my life.

Pictures of the Boats

The "Golden Hinde II",
a replica of Sir Francis Drake's ship,
enters San Francisco Bay
after a triumphant 103 day trip from England,
400 years after the original voyage.
She was greeted by a flotilla of
sailboats, fireboats, yachts and fishing boats
as she sailed under the Golden Gate.

My First Sailboat

My pride and joy at The Dock

Calm Wind

Coasting Along

Heading Out

Outside the Gate,
Gene on the wheel,
Nice wind.......Nice wake

Up the Mast!
Cleaning up the decorations after Opening Day
If you were a guest on the boat and
I had a flag for your home place,
or you brought your own flag,
it was flown as long as you were on board.
The top of the mast was 47 feet above the water.
This is about 2/3's up.
Thank gosh we were at the dock.

Dry Dock

End of a Good Sail Day

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6-15-2001