Story by Lee Wicklund -- Initially I had planned on doing this race with Chris Green as we had talked about doing it for the past few years on my Nacra 20 beach catamaran, 20 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, 390 pounds with no cabin, just a trampoline between the hulls. Usually something came up and we scrapped the idea. This year, I was hell bent on doing it. Unfortunately Chris has a job and couldn't get out of some previously scheduled commitments.

I contacted Wendy Simkins of Spanish Fork, Utah since she had expressed great interest in doing more of this type of racing at Ruff Riders in South Padre. She bought a ticket and headed down Wednesday evening before the race. I stopped by the Green's for a few last minute items and picked up Wendy at the airport then headed to Galveston. The forecast wasn't looking to favorable for a beach cat doing this in the dark and I was contemplating my escape routes should it get too rough. Initially it was looking like the weather wouldn't get rough till mid day Friday, so we should be ok.

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!

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!"

Damons Note: Recently a Hobie 18 was listed in our classified ads which claimed to be the "last Hobie 18 to ever leave the Hobie factory". I was intrigued by this claim and contacted the seller to find out how he ended up with such a special catamaran. Here is his story.

In the fall of 2004, I was looking for a new Hobie 14 Turbo. I did not know that Hobie Cat USA had discontinued selling the 14 in the states here some years ago. When I called Hobie Cat to inquire about the 14, I not only learned that the 14 had been discontinued, but was also told that Hobie had just announced the discontinuance of the 18 as well.

I had been tracking the wind speed, from the office, at 12-16 knots steadily from the southwest all morning. Around noon, I was able to get a crew to head out to the lake at 2:00 PM - Friday July 25, 2003.

I should have known was not a good sign that on the way to the lake there was a major accident. An driver had crossed the center lane of the highway and hit another car, forcing us to detour and delay launching.

My Hobie 18 Magnum catamaran is kept mast up on a catamaran beach inside the Muskegon Harbor breakwater, so we quickly got it rigged and launched. The acceleration out of the harbor was GREAT! After clearing the lighthouse, that is where we ran into a slight problem.

Bill Cash" Date: Sat Nov 9, 2002 9:01 am Subject: Re: Charters
Katherine and I are planning a vacation around our 30th anniversary in February. One thought is to go to Belize and do the "Under the Sun in Belize" trip. Sounds like a fun trip... 8 days on an 18 going from Cay to Cay and lodge to lodge, BUT its expensive. $1950 each plus 750-1000 each for airfare. And since we don't know anyone who has done this trip we have some reservations about dumping 6K on a vacation.

My second thought is to do a bare boat charter, BUT the vast amount of our sailing experience is on beachcats or very small monoslugs. IM not sure a charter service is gonna allow us to bareboat a 30+' catamaran with beachcats as the backbone of my sailing resume... Can anyone point me to a "more relaxed" charter service, in the Keys of the Islands?

Bill
From: "Damon" Date: Fri Nov 8, 2002 9:08 pm Subject: Re: [beachcats] Charters
Do it! Do it! Take lots of pictures and write an article for TheBeachcats.com, you can be the reporter for the Central America desk while your there. <grn> The pay will be low (0), the work will be hard, but the honor will be great!
Damon</grn>

This is the story of my trip from Memphis Tennessee, to Navarre Beach Florida to attend the "Juana Good Time Regatta". It's just over 500 miles from Memphis to Navarre. I had never gone that far in just a weekend before, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to sail the Emerald coast one more time this season. My boat, a Hobie 18 Magnum was in good shape for the trip. Although it's an '81 model, pretty much everything on the boat has been replaced or upgraded in the 9 years I've owned it. Everything that is, but the standing rigging. As far as I know, the shrouds, forestay, and bridal wires are original equipment. The original plan was to leave early Friday morning and rendezvous in Grenada, MS with Lee (aka Capt Teach) with a Hobie 18 and Gill with a Prindle 18-2 and caravan on down to Florida...

I pulled out of my driveway pretty much on schedule after a frantic search for the trailer wiring adapter I needed to plug my trailer into the Chevy van. Unfortunately the illusive adapter was nowhere to be found so I spent the next hour in the AutoZone parking lot rewiring my trailer to match the van. I'm hoping this is the worst setback I experience during the trip.

Back on the road I call Lee to give him an updated ETA and find out that Gill has dropped out of the trip and Lee's vehicle has dropped it's transmission, so it's suddenly become a one boat caravan. Lee still wants to head to Juana's to party, so I stop in Grenada to pick him up and we are on the road again. Nine hours later (including the time to change a tire on the van) we pull into the parking lot at Juana's Pagoda House, it's about 9:00pm and the parking area is jam packed with cats on trailers. Registration is nicely organized, payment of the $50 registration fee nets a wristband for meals and $1 Coronas during the weekend, along with two T-shirts. The wind is howling across the parking lot and several people comment that they "hope it keeps this up all weekend", the term "be careful what you wish for" should have come to mind.