OPB

(Previous years)

When I started sailing on a regular basis, I was crewing on a Catalina 22 for series races at AYC. That boat hasn't raced regularly in awhile now, due to the skipper acquiring a lot of other obligations. I have had a few other regular rides over the years, but a lot of my sailing has been as pick-up crew, both in series races and in the summer beer can races, and even in a few regattas. I have almost always managed to find a ride when I needed one--there have been a couple of times I've had to put my boat in the water, mainly when it's cold and wet and not too many boats are going out.

Based on my experience as skipper and crew, I would say I'm intermediate-level crew--I'm good about showing up on time and not cancelling if the weather gets nasty, but I'm not all that strong or all that fast and I haven't worked one position on one boat long enough to get really good at it.

Through various Internet connections (Austin Sailing Society, Trailer Sailor Bulletin Board) I have managed to pick up a few rides outside the local area (oh, another good point--willing to use vacation time :) ). I did the Harvest Moon Regatta down on the Gulf in 2002, which was a good experience on the whole, though it did feature the one day of sailing I have had so far that was genuinely not better than a good day at the office. That didn't deter me from jumping at the next change that presented itself to go sail offshore, in the Around Long Island Regatta in 2004. That went much better-- I felt kind of bad the whole time we were actually on the Atlantic, but I didn't throw up at all, and after all that was only 27 hours or so. This year I had another chance, on rather short notice--my friend Bob, whom I crewed for several times in 2005 on his Catalina 22, called me on a Wednesday to say that the boat he was crewing on had had a crew member pull out at the last minute for the Regatta del Sol al Sol. 24 hours later I was on a plane to Tampa, and on Friday we started for Mexico. We did not cover ourselves with glory, finishing in just over five days, but I didn't throw up and we saw some whales.

For the past three years, since the Ocala Sailing Club started holding Harpoon Nationals, I have been sailing that with my friend Mark on his 5.2 Mischief. This year after Nationals I also had the honor of sailing Mark's big boat, an Albin Ballad which he bought last fall and which he and his friends put a lot of time into restoring over the winter, on her first post-restoration voyage (well, the first one was motoring to the pump-out station, but I was also along for the first sail). Sadly, that was my last time sailing with Mark, who passed away about a month later. He will be missed.

I raced Fearless for the spring series this year, but crewed on an Ensign for the Red Eye Regatta, a Catalina 22 for the Frostbite Series, and a Catalina 22 Sport for the "Turnback warm-up" series. For Turnback itself, I was on a Capri 25 this year. There was very little wind, but it was still fun. This summer, sailing has been curtailed by high water on Lake Travis, leading to the lake being closed for a week and a half now.