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Sailing start to the year

By Patricia On January 2, 2012 In Sailing With No Comments Permanent Link to Sailing start to the yearPermalink

Just a handful of photos from the New Year’s race down in San Diego. I was on board Bud, a TP52. Sadly, we were missing most of the regular crew, and we decided to take the first race mark with us rather than leaving it to port. A costly mistake (although we all agreed the mark was a good 12-15 feet away, so why our keel got caught on its line is debatable). It was a bummer, but it was also comical to look back just as we rounded the mark, to see this huge orange triangle right at our stern. The winds were pretty light and variable, and a downwind start was probably the slowest (and also pretty comical) start I’ve seen. Everyone was essentially drifting to the start. Likewise with the finish.

Max teaching the youngsters how to grind. [Insert dirty joke here]

Here’s hoping for an awesome sailing year in 2012!

America’s Cup World Series San Diego Video

By Patricia On December 11, 2011 In California, Sailing With No Comments Permanent Link to America’s Cup World Series San Diego VideoPermalink

Just a miscellaneous video of the finish in one of the Saturday races.

Winds and the Fulmore Race

By Patricia On October 25, 2011 In Photography, Sailing With No Comments Permanent Link to Winds and the Fulmore RacePermalink

There is a sound, created as the wind touches these curved, meticulously laid out surfaces. Of course sailing is an art, and a romantic one in theory — harnessing this invisible force and moving, moving moving. Two hundred years ago, skillful sailing could win and end wars: sailing had a purpose. Does it still, other than resetting our inner compass as Cheryl would say? Patrick O’brian often wrote, through his Stephen Maturin character, about Captains Aubrey’s obsession of sailing from point A to point B in the fastest, most efficient way, be damned all wonders passed and ignored. Golden coasts, undiscovered species, landscapes seen once in a lifetime, they all float next to a ship and then behind it, buried in the wake often never to be seen again. If it is romance we are aiming for, sailing is a metaphor on the movement of life. For a while things are next to us, but just for a moment, and then they’re bobbing in our wake, out of our lives. We keep moving, so long as there is wind.

Wind is part of the story.

Photos from the Fulmore Race from Santa Barbara to Pelican Bay:


Departing Santa Barbara Yacht Club, destination Pelican Bay.


At the start with Radio Flyer, left, and Rush Street

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Busy, beautiful weekends

By Patricia On October 13, 2011 In Amazing!, California, Photography, Sailing, Santa Barbara, Travels With No Comments Permanent Link to Busy, beautiful weekendsPermalink

Every once in a while, you come across these perfect weekends spent not only surrounded by incredible scenery and weather, but by amazing people. In my last trip up to Santa Barbara, I met Doug, who sails with Sleeper — a Lindenberg 26. He arranged for me to come up this weekend, basically for a trial run — to see if I was game enough to go on an overnight race out to Santa Cruz island this upcoming weekend.

I left a little later than I would’ve liked, so my choices leaving Santa Monica were to sit in traffic on the 405 or to sit in traffic on the PCH.

Obviously, I chose the PCH. It’s a gorgeous drive north, first through the coast and then some picturesque farmland.

I stayed with the co-owner of Sleeper, Cheryl, in her stunning Santa Barbara home. I walked through the door, and was speechless with the view.

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What a life

By Patricia On August 23, 2011 In California, Sailing With 1 Comment Permanent Link to What a lifePermalink

Mark and his family invited me out to Catalina for the weekend.

On the way over, in the ferry, the guy working the bar on the upper level came over to chat with me. I took the Saturday 2:55 p.m. ferry from San Pedro, and it was relatively empty. He said he used to have a job that paid him a lot, but it was too stressful and he never spent anytime with his family. Now, he told me “I get done with work some days and say ‘This doesn’t suck’ .”

And that was the theme for the weekend, in fact the same statement was repeated by several random people I met.

Sunday night we had dinner on board a Lagoon 400 owned by a friend of Mark’s. Brothers Frank and Charles BBQ for us, and it was another lovely evening in which I felt I was living a life belonging to someone else.  I met some incredible people, with fascinating stories and lives.

Jody is sizing up the “real estate”. Early on Sunday morning, we went on a dinghy ride to adjacent coves, where some of the most incredible boats are moored. Mark explained the hierarchy of moorings, and how the more exclusive boats are at 4th of July and Cherry coves. He said there are wait lists to buy moorings, and that some boat owners are on those lists for 30+ years.

Mark was doubling down on those Buffalo Milk drinks. In his own words “I don’t think I left the bar all day Sunday.”

What a life.

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