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The last few weeks have been hectic and full of change, but absolutely awesome. First off, i'll be racing next year's Singlehanded Transpac (SHTP) sailing race, from California to Hawaii, under the banner of a national non-profit organization called "Hope for the Warriors". It is a wounded veteran related non-profit organization, and I am absolutely ecstatic to be working with them, supporting their cause and representing them in the SHTP. Because of this, i've had to drastically change pretty much everything that I was doing, and head to the east coast. (Not that i'm complaining....) In the last two weeks, i've canceled my cruising trip to Mexico, sold my boat, quit my job, ended my lease on my place, packed up all of my things and relocated to the east coast. All this, and I was just starting to feel at home in San Diego!
The Singlehanded Transpac A few weeks ago, the guys at www.SailingAnarchy.com, the world's largest sailing website, did a feature article on me. Basically, the editor, "Mr. Clean", had me write up my story in abbreviated form and send it to him, along with some pictures. I was under the assumption that he would edit the story drastically, and present it in more of a third-person perspective, but he liked the way that it read and just threw it on the front page with minor revisions. The whole point of the article, for me anyways, was to get some exposure and try to find a ride for next year's "Pacific Cup" race to Hawaii and the two Mexico races. (Newport- Cabo and Newport- Ensenada). I thought that I would probably get an offer or three to race on someone's boat, but what happened completely blew me away. The very next day when I got home from work, my email had been slammed with about 25 messages from people who had read the story and wanted to help me out. Marines, both past and present, sent letters of support and words of encouragement. A few industry people sent messages offering to help me out in various ways. Seasoned ocean sailors sent me words of advice. "The big one", however, came from an individual named Don Gray. Don is a former Marine who served in Vietnam, and has since started a wounded veteran related non-profit organization called "Hope for the Warriors". He's also an avid ocean racer. He has raced his Jutson 30 in multiple Bermuda 1-2's and in last year's Singlehanded Transpac. He basically said "this is a long shot, but let's talk about you racing my boat to Hawaii next year." Nearly spitting my drink all over my laptop, I e-mailed him back immediately and left him a voicemail. At first I was a bit skeptical, but after talking to him, I felt pretty comfortable so I said "Don, what do I need to do to make this happen?" By the time we both hung up the phone, the wheels were in motion for me to race his boat next year, and 2 short weeks later, i'm on the east coast ready to begin working on this project, full time. The plan is for me to travel to North Carolina, which is where his boat is and work on it for a month or two. He wants me to re-bed all of the deck fittings, re-do the rudder, beef a few things up and generally do quite a bit of maintenance. The boat is by NO means a basket case in it's current form, but I get the impression that he does things "the right way" and is pretty thorough in preparing for a solo, open ocean race, which is a good thing. I've learned a lot about sailing solo to Hawaii, and proper boat preparation has to be at the top of the list. Once the boat is ready, we will trailer it across country to San Francisco and put it in a slip, probably in the Alameda area. We will need to step the mast, rig the boat and get it ready to sail, and then he plans to head back east shortly thereafter and let me begin training for the race. I will then complete a 400+ mile solo, offshore qualifier voyage, race the "Corinthian Race" and the "Singlehanded Farallones" race before racing in the SHTP which starts on June 19, 2010. While I have done quite a lot of sailing over the past two years, and gained some valuable offshore experience, I am just beginning to realize how much I still have to learn. With last year's experiences still fresh in my memory, I have a very healthy respect of what it takes to successfully and safely reach Hawaii, and as such, I will be training under some very accomplished singlehanded ocean racers and learning as much as I can in a short time. (About 5 months) I am not setting off on another voyage under-prepared. Both myself and the boat need to be ready for this race, so I have my work cut out for me. I know what I need to do, and i'm ready to begin. I can't wait to get to Alameda with the race boat and truly get ready for this race. I personally think that the Newport- Cabo race in March is something that I need to do before going to Hawaii. I'm really hoping that I can crew on a boat in that race, and on the delivery back. That would be close to 2,000 miles of ocean sailing on a crewed race boat with experienced sailors. I also like the fact that it would be 1,000 miles downwind and 1,000 miles to windward. I also hope to race the Newport- Ensenada on Dave Hopkins' Tripp 40 "Trippin'". Dave is a San Diego sailor that I raced the San Diego- Ensenada with last month. Go Team Trippin'! I absolutely can not wait to begin preparing for this next year of sailing. A huge opportunity has been put in front of me and I am completely focused on making the most of it. Not just for myself, but for my sponsor(s), and for all of the veterans that this organization helps out. They are the focus of this mission. Hope for the Warriors Hope for the Warriors (H4W) will be my title sponsor for the race. I could not be happier about this. After talking with Don and researching the organization, I am absolutely 100% ecstatic to be working with them. The mission of the organization is to help out wounded veterans and their families who have been adversely affected by combat injuries and/ or death, in the line of duty. Seeing as how I nearly got killed by an RPG in combat, in Iraq, this is a cause that I truly believe in. My goal with the organization is to raise as much money for their cause as possible, help them achieve some valuable and positive publicity to promote their cause, and to help the organization achieve a positive return on investment. That's the beauty of working with this organization. Achieving a positive ROI doesn't mean making a ton of money for someone, it means helping wounded veterans and the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I absolutely could not be happier to be working with this organization. The organization is very broad and far reaching. They do everything from sending widows and spouses to college, (after all, if a service member gets killed in combat, often times the wife is left to support for the family...), remodel homes for the wounded (making them more handicap accessible, etc), to providing professional training for veterans who have been discharged or retired, and even providing training for injured vets to run marathons, to even helping wounded veterans like me compete in athletic events. The organization is brilliant and I am extremely happy to be on board with them and help their worthy cause. If you would like more information on the organization, I have written down the address to their very informative website below. You can find everything from write-ups on what they do, to financial information, to information on how to work with them. Read their website if you want to learn more, I thoroughly researched them before becoming affiliated. They are more than legit... More than 92% of every dollar they raise goes to helping veterans. Their website is www.HopeForTheWarriors.org The boat That thing is BAD ASS. It is a Jutson 30 race boat from Australia. It was built to the "Mt. Gay 30" box rule. There are only a couple of them in the US, to my knowledge. If you know sailboats, this might put things into perspective. It's a 30 foot boat and it rates a 66 under PHRF. That's fast for a 30 foot boat. Really fast. Big, open transom that looks absolutely awesome. Sleek design. Deep bulbous keel. (Notice I didn't say "bulb" keel.) Super stout rig. There is a 6' sprit on the bow, water ballast down below (might disable that before the race), rod rigging, A-sails, awesome below-decks hydraulic autopilot, tiller steered, full on race boat etc etc. I believe the boat was built around 1996. We are going to be equipping the boat with some new sails, new SSB with radio modem, new cordage, and hopefully some solar power. Before that, though, is all of the boat work I plan to do in North Carolina, that I mentioned above. I like Don's taste in boats. I was originally hoping to race the SHTP on a Moore 24/ Santa Cruz 27/ Olson 30 or Hobie 33, if I was lucky. This is a step up from any of those. If not a running leap... (Not to say anything bad about the above mentioned boats. I still think Moore 24's are HOOOOOTTTTTTTTT. And to whoever has that Hobie 33 in San Diego: NICE boat, dude. sleek and sexy.) Racing in Dago I would recap all of the races i've been doing in Dago, but, let's just say I continued racing every weekend until I left town. Last weekend was the first Hot Rum race. I did it on the Beneteau 35.5 "Vikktoreous". I love that boat and I love the crew even more. That is arguably the boat that I enjoy sailing on the most. John Dodge and his crew are just a great bunch of people to sail with and spend an afternoon with. John is a great teacher, and I really enjoy his boat. We did not do extraordinarily well last week. That is by no means anyone on the boat's fault. Last Sunday was very light breeze, very shifty and the wind angles weren't ideal for our boat. If you have 12 knots on a "reachy" course, then that boat is awesome and sails to it's rating very well. In last Sunday's conditions; not so much.... Writing this is bittersweet because I had really hoped to race the last two "Hot Rums" with Vikktoreous. Good luck guys. (And to Trippin', Alley Cat, Uproarious, Sea Maiden, and all of the other boats I sail on.) The Cal 25 files I loved that boat. I look back on that boat now, and just smile. Even more so after selling it. (And not for the reasons that you may think by that statement.) I put "Amahkua" up for sale on Craigslist, and the very next morning I had a couple from Virginia Beach (where i'm at right now) leave me a voicemail and say that they wanted to look at it. So I met them down at the dock and showed them the boat. After 30 minutes they basically said "ok, we want to buy it, are you negotiable on price?" I had intentionally listed the boat high at $2,000, hoping to actually get $1,500 for it. I was just straight up and honest with them about what I needed to get out of the boat and the wife pulled out an envelope with exactly $1,500 and said "we were hoping to buy it for this much." So with everyone happy, we all signed the necessary paperwork. Just like that, in less than 24 hours, my boat was gone, for the price I wanted to get out of it. Not too bad. Now comes the fun part. The husband wanted me to help him deliver the boat to their house, which has a dock behind it. I agreed to this in the terms of sale, so I met him at the boat the next morning. He told me he was new to sailing, but he had never even been on a sailboat. This was his first time ever! So we fired up the outboard, left the slip, and threw up the sails at the breakwater. With about 5 knots of breeze, building to 10, we slowly and silently sailed away from my marina for the last time. A 2 hour sail across the bay and we were in Coronado Cays, where his dock is. When coming into the Cays, we "found" the un-announced end of the channel (not a big deal, but I did have to immediately jump off the boat and push us back into deeper water. Lucky it worked out that well....), so we dropped the sails and motored through to the dock, just a hundred feet away. By the time we reached the dock and tied off, his wife and son were down there. You should have seen the guy's face when talking to his wife and son about sailing for the first time! He was absolutely stoked! He's an E-9 in the Navy, and after 25 years in VA Beach, he and his family have just recently been stationed in San Diego. Super cool guy, and he seems more than happy with the boat, so i'm happy that I could introduce someone to sailing, while at the same time sending "Amahkua" to a good home. I only had that boat for a bit more than 2 months, but had already fallen in love with it, sailing it every weekend with my friend Logan, spending a fun weekend at anchor on it, working on it and spending several nights on it as a mid-week escape from work. Goodbye "Amahkua". You were a good boat to me. (Seriously, if anyone in So. Cal is looking for a good, cheap, small cruising boat, Cal 25's in the $1,000 to $2,000 range are pretty plentiful and well worth the money. Check Craigslist.) Working with the America's Cup boat- BMW/ Oracle A couple of weeks ago, the BMW/ Oracle 90 foot trimaran lost it's mast in about 10 knots of breeze. The boat is the challenger for next year's America's Cup, and is based in San Diego. (Even though it says San Francisco on the stern.) That boat is a pretty big deal for the city, and everyone loves it. So, anyways, the rig comes down during testing, about 30 miles offshore of Point Loma. So they tow it back to it's mooring, downtown, to a crowd of people waiting for them, news cameras, and international media. The local Fox affiliate has been covering it on the news ever since. With a ton of hype, the $10 million mast (yes, you read that right...) was taken off and sent out to be repaired. This all happened on a Wednesday. 5 days later, BMW shocked the world by preparing the boat at night, and rigging it in the morning, live on local news, with THE WORLD'S LARGEST-EVER RIGID WING. Yes, a 187 foot tall wing. No more soft sail. The "wing thing" took off and started sailing figure 8's in San Diego bay, and clocking close to 30 knots on a reach. In San Diego Bay, on live news! The entire sailing world was watching. So "Mr. Clean" from Sailing Anarchy immediately hopped on a plane to California to provide some SA media coverage of the developing story. So last Wednesday he flies in, and calls me to come meet him at a sailor bar to grab a beer and meet up. So I come over there, and as we're talking to someone very high up at BMW/ Oracle, Clean says "you want to come on the chase boat tomorrow and take some pictures?" Umm, let me think, YES. So the next morning we hook up and head down to our 500-hp chase boat, with the owner of Point Loma Outfitting. To our surprise, a 10 foot long bow sprit has been bolted onto the front of the Tri. A big headsail is laid out on deck. Oh my god, they're going to fly the head sail downwind today for the first time! 2 hours later, Oracle is FLYING to windward at 26 knots of boat speed in just 12 knots of breeze, with 2 hulls very far out of the water. So i'm taking some pictures when something white and rigid flies off the back of the boat. Oracle immediately turns into the wind and comes to a stop. I yell "something broke!". Oracle's chase boat immediately retrieves what ever is floating in the water, in a secretive manner, and the crew sends a man up the rig of the massive race boat. It is believed that some type of hinge pin broke, because the second foil on the back of the wing was way out of alignment with the others. I take tons and tons of pictures, 3 of which were posted on SA's front page. Clean gave me photo credit, which I was pretty stoked on. Pretty neat photos. Not a huge deal with the broken part, i'm sure BMW/ Oracle will be back in action very soon. Alinghi had a spy boat out there watching all day long as well. On a side note, we never got to see the headsail get flown. 3 guys were on the bow and looked as though the big sail would be hoisted, but the boat broke... :( On the way back to the dock, we were cruising at a steady 40 knots in our chase boat while Alinghi's RIB was struggling to maintain 30+. Right as we finally caught them and blew their doors off, they slowed down significantly. We clanked our beverages to toast our achievement, and continued on towards the dock. (Alinghi is the current America's Cup champion. Their owner Enernesto Bertarelli is singlehandedly trying to destroy the America's Cup in a court room battle. He is not very well liked in San Diego, and I personally can't stand the guy for what he's doing.) Checking SA's front page later that night, and I found out why Alinghi's spy boat slowed down so much. Their prop sheered off at more than 30 knots as we blew by! We hate Ernesto, but still would have towed you guys back to the slip... That night I went to Fiddler's Green with a bunch of sailing buddies and celebrated a bit, as I was leaving town the next day. Not a bad final full day in San Diego..... (LIke many, I was completely unexcited and disenfranchised with the next America's Cup, because of Bertarelli's lame court room antics, but after seeing that boat sail, in person, with the huge wing, I am completely stoked. Pictures do not do that boat justice. It is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. An absolutely amazing machine in every way. I'm going to buy a BMW/ Oracle shirt and rock that thing everywhere. Go the B.O.R 90!!!) Making the move to the East Coast. Things happened really quickly with this one. When I woke up 3 Mondays ago, I went to work like any other day, so that I could save up some more money and take my boat cruising to Mexico in January. The very next day, I had plans to now sell my boat and make the transition to the East Coast. In less than 10 days, I had quit my job, sold my boat, ended my lease and began tidying up in San Diego. So my last week and a half in San Diego, I was basically just on vacation. I cycled a lot, did nothing for a bit, cleaned up my room, shipped a couple things home, did some racing and sailing, and lined up a flight back East. I hung out with my mentor, Ed McCoy on my last day and he gave me a ride to the Coronado Air Station, where I hopped on a military flight on Friday the 13th (sounds grim, I know) and flew to Norfolk, with stops in Florida and South Carolina to pick up some Marines. From here, I think I may be going to our nation's capitol of Washington D.C., and then onto North Carolina. Like i've said before, i'm super excited to be doing what i'm doing, but I already miss San Diego in a lot of ways. My very first day NOT being in San Diego was a cold, damp, wet, Virginia Beach day. The weather is beautiful right now, but still; San Diego > Virginia. I'm staying with an old college friend of mine for a couple of days. We hung out over the weekend and partied a little bit, but now i'm planning my next move... Hope to go to D.C. if need be and then get down to North Carolina ASAP, so that I can start working on the boat and really setting the wheels in motion on this whole adventure. I hope to have the boat done and ready to go by Christmas time, so that I can spend time with family and relax for a bit before heading back to California around the second week of January and putting the boat in a slip in San Francisco. Really can't wait to get started.... end Now that I have actually made the move east, and will be working on the boat soon, I plan to start regularly updating this blog again, until i've sailed back from Hawaii next July or August.
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November 24, 2009
216.166.43.194
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