Capes, points, and headlands are difficult challenges for mariners. If you have been certified at the BKB level, perhaps you have already encountered a problem returning to Potrero Reach from Keller Cove, the open area between Point Richmond (the old ferry dock) and the Chevron Pier. Sailing upwind against an adverse current, you may have found it frustrating to try to turn the corner past the pilings, each tack seemingly depositing you right back where you started. This is the same issue, on a somewhat grander scale, that makes rounding Cape Horn, or any other cape, nearly impossible in the wrong conditions. In 1905 a full rigged ship named \u201cSusanna\u201d took 99 days to make it around Cape Horn, the longest rounding in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conquering such an obstacle, so that land is now between\nyour present position and your previous one, is called \u201cdoubling\u201d a cape or\npoint. This term, one of the oldest in the literature of the sea, is first\nfound in that grandfather of all sailing yarns, Homer\u2019s Odyssey.<\/em> In book IX Odysseus reports that \u201c\u2026just as I doubled\nMalea\u2019s cape, a tide rip and the North Wind drove me way off course,\u201d and that\nis when his famous troubles began. Every sailor knows the anxiety of such\nroundings, and 3200 years later the Sailing Directions warn the mariner to\napproach this cape on the southern tip of the Peloponnesian peninsula with prudence,\nfor the exact reasons Homer describes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those with BCC certification may attempt to double Point\nCampbell on the NW corner of Angel Island or Bluff Point on the SE tip of\nTiburon, sometimes tacking against the current on the way into Raccoon Strait. After\nBBC, your sailing area expands beyond the line between Peninsula Point at the\ntip of Belvedere and Point Stuart on Angel Island. You may fight a fickle\nbreeze and a contrary current when attempting to get past either one. After\nACC, you\u2019ll be rounding Point Bonita. Who knows what distant capes and headlands\nyou may one day double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the wonders of our sport is that through the\ntraditional terms, the ancient skills, and the timeless wind, sea, and\ngeography that we share with the legendary sailors of olden days, we can relive\nsome of the most stirring adventures in history–even if all we set out to do\nis to double Point Richmond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Capes, points, and headlands are difficult challenges for mariners. If you have been certified at the BKB level, perhaps you have already encountered a problem returning to Potrero Reach from Keller Cove, the open area between Point Richmond (the old … Continue reading