Sailing The Bay
- Book Review,
by Kimball Livingston, Kimball Livingston
SAIL, August, 1998
"A stirring and magical addition to any ship's library."
Latitude 38, June 1998
"We've said it before and we'll say it again: the best book, bar none, on San Francisco sailing is Kimball Livingston's Sailing The Bay. Those of you who lost out on finding rare used copies (we jealously guarded ours) will be happy to know that Livingston's pole-on-the-headstay prose in the new edition captures our sport and passion as no other book has."
Book Description
Sailing The Bay is a complete survey of San Francisco Bay: tide, wind, folkways, mores, the places to go, the ocean outside, the bruises, the beauty, and the inside line. Here is everything you need to know to be a complete sailor on San Francisco Bay. Kimball Livingston's writing is packed with the spirit and the canny tales of a water rat who has sailed the bay upside down and sideways. The author also gives rein to his scientific, analytical side, and he draws upon the best talents of the time, relating their favorite "holds and escapes" for the challenging winds and tides of the region. Whitbread winner Paul Cayard writes the foreword, Olympian Jeff Madrigali speaks on racing strategies for the Berkeley Circle, and U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Ralph Ta-Shun Cheng addresses the interplay between wind and tide, for example. Cruisers will find a guide to favored destinations from Petaluma on the north to Alviso on the south. But, Sailing The Bay reaches beyond the nuts and bolts of racing moves and overnight anchorages to embrace the characters and events that have "made" San Francisco Bay. If you want to be a savvy sailor, you need this book. If you want to share in the traditions of San Francisco Bay, you have to have it.
From the Author
There are three rules of sailing: Starboard has right of way over port, leeward has right of way over windward, and when somebody says, `Heads up', put your head down.
About the Author
Paul Cayard says, "Like all good writers, Kimball has done what he writes about." Livingston has cruised muddy backwaters in small boats, he's crossed oceans on grand prix racing machines, he's listened to everything anyone ever had to say about sailing on San Francisco Bay, and he's brought it all together with a love for the English language. Here, he writes as a sailor for sailors, but this is one sailor who never met a boat he didn't like, whether it was powered by wind, oars, diesel, jet fuel, or a tall tale. He's as fascinated by the brief but brilliant history of windsurfing as he is by the musings of Pliny the Elder or the quips of Mae West (and vice versa), and he's not afraid to throw everything into the pie.
Excerpted from Sailing The Bay by Kimball Livingston. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
A strong current and opposing wind make the classic rough-water mix. The waves square off, the troughs thin out, and the tops go to slapping salt in your face. When San Francisco Bay's natural ventilation is registering at the top of its thrills-per-minute scale, this is better sport than throwing Christians to the lions. Take the strange case of Corry and Jimmy, who after all was said and done did not swear off sailing (except briefly), as they worked the final leg of their race. And then it came time to tack. And in the tack they felt a bump, the kind of bump that provokes the question: Oh heavens, Aunt Martha, what have we hit now? But the boys trimmed right on out on the new tack, and they let their reflexes bring their small dinghy back to speed, gathering stability enough for a look around the boat only to find themselves richer by one shark, just like that. It was a modest shark, of a species of no great reputation, but a shark nonetheless-nearly four feet worth of sand shark wedged right by the centerboard trunk. Jimmy sat with his feet in the straps, steering with the tiller extension. He began to ease the sails. His voice was not normal, He was saying, "Out! Out! Get him out!" Boats were sailing right past them. "Get him out!" Corry was meanwhile hanging outside the boat on the trapeze wire and eyeballing the shark. The shark's tail was twitching one Sunday punch at a time. One shark eye was staring right back at him, and Corry looks over and says, "You get him out." A credit to the crew's union, that boy. In the background, as bare as during the Gold Rush, rose the northern escarpment of an ocean pass. "Dammit, Corry, it's your boat!" The air was crystal clear. "Are you kidding? That's a shark!" The ebb rushed out, and the wind rushed in ...
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