I’m tired of politics again and here is a bit more on sailing.
My first Sailboat that I owned was an Ericson 28 that looked just like this one.
It was just right for our small family and we spent many days at Catalina. Mike Jr went with us but the others were still small.
Than, in 1975, I bought a bigger boat, a Yankee 38.
Here is the Yankee on the day we had open house.
The Yankee had a very nice interior and I began to get involved in racing. The boat was a classic design by Sparkman and Stephens but the IOR had changed the world of racing sailboats and the design was never very successful. Still, it was bulletproof and I had a lot to learn. We sailed it to Mexico several times,including one experience with a small Mexican hurricane. In 1978, I was ready for something with more potential and bought an aluminum boat designed by Doug Peterson, who had designed a world One Ton champion boat named Ganbare, Japanese for “Good Luck.” The boat I bought was built in San Diego by Carl Eichenlaub who had been building wooden race boats for years. He had recently gone to aluminum and this boat was owned by the same man I had bought the Yankee 38 from.
That was the Peterson 35 that I owned in 1977 to 1979. I was a very good light air boat and needed new sails that I could not afford at the time due to a divorce. It also rolled a lot in heavy air downwind so I did not want to take it in long races. Eventually, it ended up in San Francisco and did well in a single handed Transpac with a new owner.
After this boat was sold, I bought a J 24 for local racing until I recovered financially.
It looked a bit like that one but Orange and I named it “Cheap Trick.”
This is it racing off Dana Point taken through a telephoto lens.
There it is rounding the windward mark and setting a spinnaker. Eventually, I recovered financially and was still interested in racing.
The next boat was a Scott Kaufman design that was built by Dennis Choate who I had known for years.
It was light for the time and fast and very strong. We tested the strength with a windy Transpac. I would have been better advised to keep the Yankee and stay with cruising but the divorce was based a bit on issues of professional satisfaction and racing provided some ego gratification I needed.
Here we are motoring out to the start of the 1981 Transpac.
The start and most of the race was recorded on a movie I made. I still watch it once in a while.
That is a clip from a longer movie I made. It is a spinnaker change 1000 miles offshore.
Here we are turning into the slip in Ala Wai Harbor after the finish. Next to our slip is the schooner Spike Africa, which had raced in a schooner race and carried our cruising gear for the trip home. We unloaded the racing sails to Spike Africa and the delivery crew used only cruising gear to go home.
The crew looks like they have been up all night because they have been. It’s about 6:30 AM. We finished at 6:10, nine minutes later than we needed to win the whole thing.
We had won second place in fleet and only missed first overall by 9 minutes.
That pretty much ended my racing career.
Eventually, another divorce led to another boat sale and I ended, several years later, with a nice cruising boat, a Cal 34.
This was nice for Catalina and I had finally given up on races, about two boats later than I should have. Still, if they offered to give me back the money, I probably would decline the offer. I had a lot of fun and some great experiences.
Claire and the kids liked the boat. It was big enough for the family.
I had a 13 foot Whaler and the older kids could even go to Avalon although I worried when they went after dark. I had a mooring at the Isthmus and later at Emerald Bay. I should have stopped there. I replaced the Atomic 4 engine but balked at spending the money to put a new diesel in the boat for about $10,000. That was a mistake.
Eventually, the kids grew up and nobody was into boats just then. I sold it when I should have kept it and replaced the engine with a diesel.
My next adventure was a few years later and very, very expensive. I decided to buy a Cal 40 and restore it. Boy was that expensive !
After the whole project was finished, we had a few nice trips to Catalina.
The LA Yacht Club is the one I had been member of since 1977 and they have a nice facility at Howland’s Landing on Catalina.
There is a nice barbecue pit and tables plus a shower. The view is good and it is a pleasant mooring spot except on big holidays when it gets crowded. I eventually had my own mooring around the corner in Emerald Cove.
I finally figured out that I was not up to handling the Cal 40 by myself and should have stayed with the smaller boat. I sold it in 2010 and now my only boat is a Lido 14 on Lake Mission Viejo. I will probably get some use of it this summer. No Catalina trips, though.
It looks like this one but is light blue.
Thanks for this.
“Cheap Trick”, heh.