Blog Guide: Start Here

S/V Chasch Mer 2007 Transpac crew
front row: Don, Mark, Dave, Ron, Eric
back row: John, Wayne, Peter, Brian, Gib.

This blog is exclusively about my sailing experiences.  

In order to get a better understanding of the content it is best to start at the first entry of each sailing trip.

These are the individual starting points:

* February 5, 2005 : Chaguaramas, Trinidad 

* October 23, 2005 : Frankfurt, Germany (Fiumicino, Italy to Colon, Panama)

  101 days, 6,388 miles

* July 21, 2008 : Rarotonga, Cook Islands to Brisbane, Australia

  72 days, 3,924 miles

* August 15, 2010 : Santa Cruz 50 delivery & TransPac 2011

  17 days, 2,529 miles

* October 24, 2010 : San Diego to Cabo San Lucas (Baja Ha-Ha 17)

 

- Under Construction-  

 

* September 2001 : S/V Learjet Alameda, CA to Cabo San Lucas (Baja Ha-Ha)

* June 2002 : S/V Learjet Cabo San Lucas to Alameda, CA (delivery)

* June 2006 : S/V Leinetar Seattle, WA to Brisbane, CA (delivery)

* October 2006 : S/V Sea Breeze San Diego, CA to Cabo San Lucas (Baja Ha-Ha)

* March 2007 : S/V Chasch Mer Oahu to Maui (round-trip) 

* July 2007 : S/V Chasch Mer Long Beach, CA to Oahu (Transpac 12 days 2,260 miles)

* March 2009 : S/V Mighty Tongaroa Newport, CA to Avalon (round-trip) 

* April 2009 : S/V Narrow Escape Oceanside, CA to Newport to San Diego (Border Run Race)

* October 2012 : S/V Indiscretion Marina Coral, Ensenada, Baja, CA, Sur to Cabo San Lucas (Baja Ha-Ha)

* April 2013 : S/V Duende Alamitos Bay, CA to Oahu (delivery)

* July 2013 : S/V Chasch Mer Long Beach, CA to Oahu (Transpac)

* March 2015 : S/V B'Quest Long Beach to San Diego (Islands Race)

* February 2017 : S/V Cobane St Lucia to Mustique (round-trip charter/cruise)

* April 2018 : S/V Iconoclast St Martin to Cartagena, Columbia (delivery)    

     

Where it all began...

One day in the spring of 2000 I woke up in Baja, CA, without a hangover and had an epiphany.  I realized I wanted to learn how to sail.  I had previous power-boat experience of the water skiing and dive boat variety and had no idea of the rivalry between sailboats and powerboats.

As an active private pilot I thought aerodynamics and fluid dynamics were pretty close in nature and jumping mediums would be an easy transition.  With what I know now I would suggest to anyone setting out on this path to reassess and check your notes.  But, that is not to say don’t try.  After all, Charles Dickens once penned, “It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.…”

My introduction to the world of high-performance off-shore sailing was part luck and part not knowing any better.  Soon after I learned to sail at a sailing school that used the San Francisco Bay as its lesson ground I put my name on a crew list hoping to get free rides.  Because, if the sailing school said I knew how to sail then I must know, right?

S/V Learjet 2001 Baja HaHa (I'm sitting the furthest forward of the mast on the rail)

One of the first and probably the first offer I received was to crew S/V Learjet, a 56’ Nelson-Marek, in an October rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas called the Baja Ha-Ha.  The phone interview went well and we agreed the next step was to go sailing on the bay so the potential crew could meet and learn the boat.  Many practice sails later with lots of crew making their way across the deck resulted in a small group of us willing, committed and accepted by the owner to participate in the trip. This specific trip was also to be a shakedown for a much longer trip to the South Pacific where this boat was eventually headed.

It was on this boat that I first heard about Santa Cruz 50s.  For many months I volunteered to work on the boat and help prepare it for long-distance sailing.  From the owner I learned that he considered only two boats to choose from and it was either an SC50 or this specific Nelson-Marek.  It was a combination of value for the money and what was available at the time.  This hull is comparable in design and has many of the same performance characteristics as an SC50.

I managed to crew this boat from San Francisco to Cabo San Lucas and back.  It was during this time that I got a crash course in long-distance offshore sailing on a high-performance sailboat.  Any of those items would be enough for a lesson to be learned and I was lucky enough to get it all at once.  Having no experience in this area it made all the difference to have several others on board with exemplary skills.  It is with their talent that gratitude from me goes their way.  There are times during a passage where the mundane and simple conditions prevail and then there are times when you get your money’s worth out of someone that has been there before and done that.  It is the skills acquired from experience that make the difference in the outcome.

S/V Learjet racing in Mexico