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And then (Dec/04) we decided to try racing again, Oh lord! Crew training
Don't know anything about sailing? Perhaps going on a sailing date? See, Basic Sailing.
And then (Dec/04) we decided to try racing again, Oh lord! Crew training
Don't know anything about sailing? Perhaps going on a sailing date? See, Basic Sailing.
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In our past lives, Julie and I were sailors. Yachties you could have called us. There was almost nothing we did that wasn't, in some way, connected to sailing. We spent week ends camping here and there in sailboats. We raced sailboats. We even lived in a sailboat. We were young, life was cheap, things were good. This may very well be the first race we ever did on our J/35 No Tomorrows We'd just taken delivery of her and she was all shiny new. Julie is standing in the companion way. I'm in the blue (with hair) driving. We bought the boat to live and cruise the world in. Big plans! |
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This can't be a race 'cause I'm not yelling at anyone. Fore deck Karl is in the foreground. Great crewman! When we left to go cruising Mark Thomas, currently owner of Raven, picked him up. At that time Mark was racing a B/25 called Zilla. Karl, Mark, Ron Gebing and I all learned to race together out of the Sierra Point Yacht Club back in the late 80s early 90s. I hear Mark now races Raven in SoCal. Karl, like myself, has been land locked raising kiddies, Ron -just- left (Last week as of this writing) to go Cruising with his family to the Caribbean on his sailboat. Totally cool! Cruising the Caribbean. Oh! Picture above, second from left, waving. That's Ron's wife. That picture, I think, was taken the day they met. Yes they met sailboat racing. :-) |
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Nothing like living in an RV that can travel anywhere in the world.. September '92 we'd finished setting up No Tomorrows for offshore cruising. We raced the '92 Runga-Kutta race, and just kept going. Here's the boat in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. December '92. This was before we knew what "Scary" was all about. Couple days later we rode through the biggest storm we'd ever seen. I thought we were goners that time. |
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Fatu Hiva in the Marquesses. Spring '93. This is in the South Pacific. I had a terrible time transitioning from Mexico to the South Pacific. Kept trying to talk Spanish to the natives. Hey, its a foreign language, these people are foreigners, right? What the problem? Ok, so Spanish isn't French, its close isn't it? Latitude 38, a local sailing paper here in the Bay area put us in an article with our picture from this anchorage. It was a Changes in Latitudes written by Jim & Sue Corenman. We were teased about taking a light weight race boat across the ocean. "Hey! It sails better than the heavy cruiser types! Just rides a little rough, that's all." The caption on the picture said something about me drilling out our tooth brushes to save weight. I guess I was a little anal about the weight issue. We only carried 30 gallons of fuel and 36 gallons of water. Most of our cruising buddies had around 500 gallons of each! From the Marquesses we headed up to Hawaii and back home. Our friends that went on to New Zealand were the group that got caught in that off season hurricane. Queen Ann's storm? Scary! |
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A later later race. (After cruising) This picture is showing the equivalent of a Nitris run for the sailboat world. Its probably blowing 25-30 knots. We are running the ragged edge of a wipeout at this moment. I'm in the back driving. (And sweating) I still remember this run. We didn't crash. (Whew!) Looking at the picture now, it seems to me that the pole is too far forward. Oh well, pretty good for a bunch of cruisers. :-) |
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-And then we had Alex... No problem! This doesn't mean that the dance is over. Alex is small. Her early life was spent strapped in a car seat sliding back and forth across the cabin floor as we raced her home over the summer racing season. (Picture above in fact.) I did have to find a job at this point. That kinda' bummed me out. [Yes, this picture was in Latitude 38, about 10 years ago.] |
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One day I came home from work and found a wound up Julie. This, is a scary thing for me. Why? Because, when Julie gets wound up, our lives typically go in wild new directions. ( Like Maryland, long story. ) It was a wound up Julie that pushed me into buying No Tomorrows in the first place. "We're moving on land." "Huh? We're what?" "Alex can now climb out the ladder. Were moving on land. NOW!" "Err.. Aye-Aye dear!" And so we moved on land. Of course, only 'till Alex got old enough for us to resume sailing. |
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But then we had Dan.. And things got pushed back a tiny bit.. And I had to get a bigger job. About this time we were starting to really miss boating. What happens? Julie gets all wound up again! She goes and finds a Jet boat in the paper. She makes me take the family out to look at it. This is where Spit-N'-Bailingwire came from. And all the Banderlog boys thought it was -my- idea! Ha! Well, I thought a hot rod boat would be a lot of fun. I Just never would have actually done anything about it myself. This launched us on a bizarre trip through The world of drag boat racing and the founding of Banderlog. Another long story.. So we figured, two more years, and the kids would be old enough to go sailing.. |
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Then we had Shelby... "Oh lord!" More years slip by.. |
This morning I woke up to a wound up Julie.
And I mean -really- wound up.
"What's the deal Julie?"
"We have to go visit the sailboat."
"No." (The emotions involved in visiting my "Old Love" and seeing her condition, that I can do very little about, are a bit much for me.)
"No, we're going TODAY!"
"No." (And the drive up 880 is a horror.)
She sits there lookin' at me; " " <- I hate that part.
Why I even bother to put up a fight is beyond me. Really it is. "Ok."
On the drive up we swung by Oyster Cove Marina the harbor where we lived when Alex was born. Our old harbormaster Dick Timothy was still there! Big reunion. He sees Alex. "Oh my lord! I remember when you were just born!" There were a couple of the old "Dock People" still there. They wanted to have a look at Alex too. Alex was wondering who all these people were. Kinda' like Harry Potter; "Why does everyone here know me?" The visit is tough.. Its been a LONG time.
We drive across the bay to Nelson's Boat Yard and locate the boat. The poor thing looks terrible. Stinks to high heaven. First I didn't have the time and then, for the last three or so years, I didn't have the money to do anything about the 'ol girl. Felt terrible standing there looking at her.
Then I hear Julie say, quietly; "Lets relaunch the boat."
I look over, "Your kidding right? Were poor remember? More like, broke?"
She shrugs. "The kids are ready. We'll manage. We always do."
"But, Julie.. "
"What? You don't want to relaunch her?"
"Yeah, sure I do, but.." I'm going over all the stuff that needs doing before the machine is at all seaworthy. "I'll need to fix the keel and get a bottom job..." I'm thinking out loud now. "Change the zinks, check the engine.."
Julie is looking around at the other boats in the boatyard. "How long do you need to fix the keel?"
"Once I have the tools n' stuff? Maybe 6 days?"
"Ok, lets do it. I'll see if I can get a babysitter for you." ( I'm a stay home dad now. No one wants computer geeks anymore. )
Julie's the one with the job now. So, she gets to call the shots. But then, who am I to argue getting the boat back into shape? That would be a dream come true.
So, once again it looks like life has takin' yet another bizarre twist. I'm going to try to put No Tomorrows back into commission. Except for the keel blistering and maybe some running rigging, I think its mostly cosmetic damage. (Fingers crossed of course.)
