Tracy and I learned how to captain a 34-foot trawler in SF Bay over the weekend. She has on her flickr account.

We've had our eye towards buying a used boat for a while now, but wanted some education on the basics of powerboating. I hooked up with Club Nautique and we signed up for their basic Powerboating Course. It was really everything I was looking for. We covered rules of the road, safety, engine systems and chart reading.

It was a two-day course, and Day 1 had us on the boat right away. We all climbed about the Lucky G, our trawler, and immediately when through the pre-launch inspection checklist. We checked that the seacocks were open, no water in the bilge (and the pumps worked), went over the electrical system and Tracy even got to do the radio check.

I was in charge of securing the starboard lines. And so I was at the stern line, having untied it but with the rope still lopped once around the cleat ready to free it, when Captain Richard, our instructor, shouted for me to release the stern line. I did, tied the line up to the railing and we were off.

We powered out to a quietish spot in the bay and Rich told me to take the helm. I drove around in circles for a little while, and we all got a chance to get a feel for the throttle and steering.

While we were out in the open water, Rich taught us how to do a pivot turn. Which is no mean feat in a boat that can't steer in reverse. The trick is to turn the left all the way to port, go forward at idle a little, then put it in neutral. After a couple seconds, you put it in idle reverse, keeping the wheel to port. Even though it can't steer, the prop walk takes over and helps out a little -- if the wind cooperates.

The Lucky G has a left-handed prop. That means the propeller rotates counter-clockwise in forward gear and, obviously, clockwise in reverse. That means that when in reverse, the stern will swing to starboard and the bow to port. This is because the propeller doesn't just move water forward and backward, but it also shoves it to the side as it's turning. In forward, the shape of the hull, the rudder, wind and such are more powerful than this weak force. But in reverse, it's that sideways pushing of the water which swings the stern around. Lucky G made a decent counter-clockwise pivot turn when the wind wasn't too fast. Pivots in the other direction are impossible.

Once we all got the pivot turn down, we headed back to the slip. Jason was the guy who got to put it in and he did really well (he'd been on ski boats and such before).

As soon as we had it in, I asked if I should secure the stern line. Rich smiled and said, "No, you should back the boat out, head down two rows, turn right, do a 180, and then put it back into the slip". And so I did. The first time I put it into the slip went off without a hitch. The wind was just right and I somehow managed to line up exactly where I needed to be. And so Rich made me do it once more.

I completely missed the entrance on the second try. I was over as far as I had been before, but the wind had died. So we all got to see firsthand how much even a little wind can push around a ship with that much freeboard. So I had to do a pivot turn and try again. Trouble is, now there was a ship coming out of a slip in front of us, a ship which had pulled up to the fuel dock (which was two slips away from us) and another large boat of some type heading into the marina. So that was another good lesson for us, and I managed to get the boat into the slip OK.

Tracy's turn at the helm had her a little nervous, I think. Rich was impressing on us that everything is slow and deliberate. "This boat's pretty big, and takes a little while to respond to changes", he explained. But after the first docking, Tracy was a natural. Once you get a feel for the controls it's a lot easier. She did her two dockings with no problem.

After lunch, we went back onto the boat to learn about docking. And then we got to practice putting the boat into a slip the opposite direction from our normal one.

We didn't leave the marina all day except for that once, but both Tracy and I has sea legs pretty bad. So we decided to watch Jaws on Saturday night. It was funny watching it and saying things like "Hey, isn't Quint leaving the dock a little too fast? That's a no-wake zone..."

Sunday started out with about 3 hours in the classroom. We learned about the buoy system, "person in water" (man overboard) situations, some safety stuff and concluded with a navigation exercise.

Rich split us into two teams. Tracy and Ron were together as Team A and me and Jason paired up as Team B. Team A had to get us out of the marina, under the Bay Bridge and into Clipper Cove. Team B's job was to get us back, and we had to go around the other side of Treasure Island.

Rich gave us about a half hour with the charts, dividers and parallel rulers. We had to draw each leg that made up the route, and then mark bearing and distance. Then we had to think about speed, and that gave us our travel time. Oh yeah, we also had to avoid obstacles. My first route has us going through a portion of the Bay Bridge.

We quickly figured out that you have to plot a course that runs fairly close to a buoy or other marker. There are a lot of red and green buoys (as well as orange sqares, daymarkers with stacked green and red, etc), and if you're looking for "red #2", then you have to make sure it's #2 and not #4. I wish we would have brought binocs with us.

I also wish we would have brought a calculator as it would have made things a little faster when plotting the route. You have to travel 1.13 nautical miles at 9 knots. How long will that take? Well, you figure it out with a little basic algebra. Travel time for that particular 1.13NM leg was a about 7 1/2 minutes. I can't recall the last time I did long division by hand, but it's good to know that I still could.

After class, we picked up lunch to go and set out. Team A had Ron at the helm and Tracy navigating. The first leg terminated at a buoy which wasn't there. Since the third leg of my journey used that same buoy on the way back, I was interested in finding it as well. Turns out that it was just missing. So they had to break out the pencil and re-plot the route on the fly.

While Tracy was at the helm, she got to experience what would be one of four "PIW Drills". That's where Rich would throw overboard a couple fenders tied together and yell "Crew overboard!". Tracy handled it right, first designating a spotter and then simulating a call to the Coast Guard. Ron was on the pole and hooked the "person" no trouble.

We pulled into Clipper Cover and found a quiet spot, then Team A got to learn about the anchoring and how to set and retrieve it. We ate lunch "on the hook" and then it was time for our tests. The test wasn't very hard. It was 35 questions, and some of them were very similar to the California Boating Safety Course (though jet skis weren't on it).

I'm happy to say that everyone passed. Tracy and I both got one wrong answer. The question I missed was: "What knot would you use to join two lines of differing sizes?" I answered a bowline, even though I knew the answer was a sheet bend. I was doing the little "rabbit goes out the hole, around the tree..." thing in my head when I was trying to recall the answer and I think that screwed me up.

After the test, it was time for Team B to take over and get us back. I started out operating the windlass for the anchor recovery exercise, with Jason at the helm. I don't think he saw my hand signals. Rich dinged us pretty hard on the lack of communication (or, I should say "the lack of effectiveness of cimmunication"). But we got it hauled up and washed, and were on our way.

The fun part came when we left the leeward side of Clipper Cove (it's an anchorage protected from the wind, which is why the airplanes used it) and into The Slot. Calms seas became 4 foot waves. We had water washing up over the boat at one point. Turns out it's also one of the best sailing areas in the world. The ocean wind gets funneled under the Gold Gate and then howls down in one direction towards Oakland. All the tidal action floods and ebbs though this narrow gap as well. So currents are fierce.

We managed to avoid all the boats, big tankers, the waves, etc and started out on our third leg with about a 90 degreee turn to port, headed roughly south. San Francisco was on our starboard and Tracy got some nice photos. We managed to find our alternate buoy easily since we recognized it, and so Rich said that we should learn about the GPS navigation system.

We set in a new course and were gazing at the autopilot when Jason said to me "Hey, you should drive now". Why? As soon as my hand hit the wheel, Tracy screams "Crew overboard!". I made Tracy the spotter and put Ron on the hook. I somehow remembered to turn off the autopilot and get us downwind of the fenders floating in the water. But I came in too fast and had to make another pass. The second time was slower, but the wind pushed us off course and Ron couldn't hook it. I got right up against them the third time, and even though Ron got the fenders aboard, I was still going too fast. Rich explained that if Ron were trying to yank a 200 pound man out of the water, he'd have been pulled overboard as well.

So we headed back in, me humming the "red, right, return" mantra in my head and Jason got us into the slip. We tied up, washed everything off, went through the checklist and were done.

I'm definitely going to take another course or three. And the owner of the club had a good point: Charter the Lucky G a couple times in the coming months. Every time we go out, we learn new things and reinforce what we already learned. And it'd be a fun weekend excursion. Rich says there are some really nice anchorages up by Sausalito suitable for overnight stays.

Anyway, there's the novelized version of 16 hours of boating instruction. Now if I can just stop looking at the boat section of craigslist all will be well...