The most B@dass boat…

So today, I was on this totally Bad@ss boat!

• It was a San Juan 33, and it had a tiller!

• The lady steering owns the boat, and used to be a scientist!

• The company that made the boats went out of business! Her number is 122, but she thinks only about 22 were actually made. Of those, she’s only seen about 3, and they’re mainly on the East Coast. She had to put a fair amount (as much as the boat cost) into it to fix it up, redo the electrical, and it uses an electric engine, not diesel.

• You can read about SJ-33S boats here. Apparently, the last one was made in ‘82!

• You can get a sense of the history here. Specifically:

  The sailboat market which had boomed
  in the 1970s was quickly fading
  as the 1980s progressed. Clarks
  sold their company in the spring
  of 1984 to San Juan Manufacturing,
  which made boats for a few years.
  - Mike Robinson, 
  "San Juan: The Right Place at the Right Time"
  

Oh man…

• So I actually went to this workshop that was for people who were interested in racing (or general sailing). A lot of people just want to day-cruise and that sort of thing. Day-cruising (especially on long trips) is nice, but racing is more exciting. It also tends to draw people more my age, too.

• Flaking the sail

• There were two boats that wanted me (that I’ve sailed on), and a third to which I was assigned, that I had also done some work on (but I had never sailed on). So I picked that one. It had the tiller and the girl who owned it liked to race. Sounds good.

Little did I know

• I freaking LOVED it. It was my thing. It was so precise and so fast. She said that it could take her 3.5 hours to get to Catalina, which I’ve done on other boats in 6.5 hours! It was clean and the tiller really gives you that feel of the boat with the wind. It leaves little margin for error. And it heels like a mofo!

So some pics

• Standing at the bow. I released the bow-lines

• This is sailing, I thought. The boat was heeling and I was loving it. We had to move to the high side strategically every time we tacked. It was just…amazing. I had a lot of fun! I’ve read that the boat isn’t for everyone, but wow…I loved it! It was a lot of fun!

On the way back

• There was a race about to happen so lots of boats…

• This guy with his carbon sail passing us

• And some sea lions took over two docks! :D

Yeah…

• This really doesn’t have anything to do with code, but I shall be spending my day working on a data analysis project! :D