Category: First Person Account

New Mexico Hobie Fleet 48 puts together a perfect family sailing & skill Regatta.

Hobie Fleet 48’s Second Annual Memorial Day Pirate Treasure Race Treasure maps will be given out at the Saturday morning Skippers meeting. Wearing a life jacket is required while on the water. You may carry as many pirate crew on your boat as safety allows. Water balloons, squirt guns, and hand paddling allowed. The treasure hunt race will start at 1PM and continue until 4PM, at that time all boats will return to Hobie Central and exchange their gold doubloons for prizes.

Saturday morning began with setting up Hobie Central & helping everyone get their boats off the trailer and set up. Three club members headed out on the water in search of four different locations & skill level areas to plant their flags & place the doubloons. That afternoon the wind was calm & a few of the pre registered families did not have their boats ready, so the board decided to reschedule the Pirate Captains meeting until Sunday morning at 10 AM. Then about 3PM the wind came up to 5-8 mph steady, & we decided to fly hulls until dinner.

The Saturday evening dinner, Frito Pie, with 4 different chili recipes to choose from, and the potluck side dishes brought by the members, made a delicious buffet spread. The silent auction gifts, graciously donated by the Hobie Cat Company USA, and several fleet members, were displayed after the meal was finished. The auction to officially take place during the Captain & Crew meeting Sunday morning. The evening camp fire is lit early enough for little campers to toast marshmallows before bed time, then old tales of sailing past are embellished by those taking advantage a captive audience.

Canadian national Mike Dobbs and American national Glenn Brown, both full time residents of Southern California, attended the U.S. Tornado Nationals in San Diego.  They sailed on Mike’s Marstrom Tornado “Full Tilt.”  Mike immediately follows the Nationals with the Olympic Pre Trials. Mike began Pre Trials with a fellow Canadian as crew but was looking for a new crew when Glenn Brown made this post to Catsailor.com.

" Mike Dobbs broke his crew, and another team may have, too. If you're in the San Diego area, and you can crew for him tomorrow and/or Sunday, give me a call..., and I will put you in touch. I'd do it myself if I didn't have prior commitments. (I crewed for Mike in the Nationals this week.)"

A genuine tale of the underdog gaining new ground, you should find these reports a very pleasant read.  Thrills, spills, and collisions with beasts are all contained herein.  Here are their reports, so far:

Fri Oct 6, 2006 9:20 am
I'm dragging the boat on the tilt trailer there tomorrow morning...should be quite a sight as I pull in to the yard with the Mini Cooper rig!

The new Carbon mast is already there as is a new main to go with it. From the registrant lists, looks like the usual suspects will be there, including the Canadian team of Alain & Eve-Marie from Montreal and Martin & Ben from Michigan...these boats are our nearest rivals, so far I've only beaten them rarely.

We have high hopes...got a day of pro coaching under our belts now...though we now have a better idea on what to improve, it remains to be seen if we can execute on those things in a race situation.

I plan to make race reports nightly if time permits...starting Monday. Mike

Be sure and read the rest of the reports, great stuff from on the scene!

Team Full Tilt Race Report, Saturday, May 20, 2006
My crew Corey M. & I entered my Tornado "Full Tilt" in the annual "Hardway" distance event this past Saturday. This race starts in Santa Barbara and finishes in Ventura harbor. There are several courses between the different fleets participating. The ORCA class big multi's typically go around Santa Cruz island for a ~70 mile distance...though this year they voted for the lesser 45 mile option of going around Anacapa island.

This year's event was officially opened up to the beachcats for the first time thanks to much lobbying by several individuals, including Ventura Nacra driver John S. Though John could not make the event himself, he did a lot of leg work promoting the it and even shuttled teams to SB the morning to the race!

We had 7 boats turn out....4 I20's, 1 Hobie Tiger, 1 Prindle 19 with spinnaker and our T. We were given the shortest course, sharing with the non-spinnaker class keelboats. Start outside SB harbor, Oil Rig Platform "C", Platform "Habitat", Platform "Grace" then finish inside Ventura harbor...for a 29 mile race distance.

By Gary Friesen -- I was about 21 years old and had just bought my first Hobie 16. It was a beat up, old red thing with plain white sails. I wasn't proud of her appearance, but I could afford her. I think that I paid about $350, on the trailer. As usual, I had no crew.

My niece who was about 9 years old at the time, was a good swimmer, body-surfer, and had taken some kind of a junior life saving swimming pool class. The two of us had swum like fish together in the ocean surf, many times. So I invited her along for a possible boat ride. I invited my parents too. It was a ploy. I could tell them that they were needed to baby-sit my niece in case I found it unsafe to take her on the boat. This way, I did not have to admit that I wanted my father there in case I couldn't raise the mast or get the boat back onto the trailer.

I had sailed my friend, Dan's Hobie 16 in a lake and had sailed my 12' mono hull in another local lake. Both experiences were lacking much wind. I knew where to find wind; the Pacific Ocean. I was familiar with where all the public motorboat launches were and I chose the one that I thought looked like it had best access. I was not too far from a well-known catamaran beach at Claremont Street but did not know anything about Claremont.

Los Angeles harbor is huge, a hundred square miles. It seemed like a good place to get ocean breeze while not being too affected by the surf. I headed to Cabrillo Beach public boat launch in San Pedro. When I got there, the wind was already blowing pretty hard and I was noticeably intimidated. I spoke to one of the locals and asked about how windy it gets there. He found out that I was a rookie and immediately told me that I was at the wrong place. I did not know that I was at the windiest hole in Los Angeles that carries the nickname "Hurricane Gulch!"

All who sailed or attempted to sail to Catalina Island this past weekend had a wonderful time.

From Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro, we had 4 Inter 20's, a Prindle19, a Nacra 5.8, a C-class cat, a Warrior 29, a Tornado, and a Reynolds 33. The C-class cat opted out when it looked highly improbable that anyone would actually reach the island before dark-thrity. Chris on the Tornado also turned back, as he had planed to because he only had one sailing day available.

Solo sailors included Chris on his Tornado, Lee on his Inter 20, Alan on his Inter 20, and John on his Reynolds 33. Also Kelly single-handed from Newport Beach on a 30' Piver trimaran.

Those who had motors used them quite a bit and those who didn't were either towed at times or did lots of paddling. The one exception was Alan, who took a ride on the C-class cat Friday, then sailed himself over to the island on his Inter 20 on Saturday when he had wind for the whole trip. He may also have been the only one in the entire fleet to have landed when there was still some daylight.

The Marina Del Rey fleet that was to consist of a Viva 27, a Reynolds 21, and a Hobie 21, a Hunter 42, and a Choate 40 had no wind on Friday. The Hunter did not go. Geoff, on the Viva 27 motored all the way to Twin Harbors. Chris and Richard from the Choate made the crossing on an 18' Whaler with a 150 horsepower grinder. I presume that the Reynolds 21 didn't set sail. I spoke with Collin who sailed the Hobie 21 on Saturday and made it to approximately the shipping lanes and having not been to Twin Harbors before, opted to turn back to the coast where they made an emergency night landing for safety. They sailed back to Marina Del Rey on Sunday and it was a very long haul for them. They accepted a tow from a passer-by when they got close to the harbor. It took them 4 hours to get close to the harbor from Point Vicente.