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Thread: New Boat 4 Sled

  1. #1321
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    235

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    There used to be a new Miss Rheingold every year. Something else to look forward to while I was at the US Military Academy (Sing Sing, West). We couldn't have the beer, but the newspaper carried the commercials...

  2. #1322
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Capitola,CA
    Posts
    3,338

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    "Who's the Fairest of Them All?"

    My vote would be for the Santa Cruz 27 first built in 1974 on Hilltop in Soquel in Bill Lee's chicken coop boat shop.

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    About 145 SC-27's were built. Now a 42 year old design, they remain pretty, strong, fast, ocean-worthy, trailerable, cruiseable, and good value.

    http://www.fastisfun.com/wizwisdom/27.html

    Overnight on Oct. 2, 1979, a large swell hit Capitola. The surf was breaking outside the mooring field and over the end of the Wharf. All 15 moored boats off Capitola Main Beach broke loose and were driven ashore. The giant surf quickly broke them into bits and pieces, where their sad remnants were put into dumpsters by Public Works.

    None survived except for the yellow SC-27 CIAO. Before an appreciative early morning crowd, CIAO did three somersaults before landing on the beach. Local boat builder Jeff Tracey hooked up his truck to CIAO and pulled her up on the Esplanade, where she was loaded on a trailer and taken home, little the worse for wear except a broken mast.

    As for being the " fairest" of Santa Cruz built boats, Bill Lee's early brochure for the SC-27 shows just how fair the boat is. Smooth as a baby's butt. Check out the fourth photo.
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...TZlZDVmY2Y1OWM
    Last edited by sleddog; 02-21-2016 at 02:21 PM.

  3. #1323
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Posts
    50

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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    A quick followup: I don't think I know Tom..but there were 9 entries in the '74 Los Angeles to Tahiti Race. 3571 miles. SORCERY the big C&C 61 was FtF and 1st Overall. Also SPIRIT, PARAGON, CONCERTO, WITCHCRAFT the 36' Bill Lee ultralight, OBSESSION, another SPIRIT, RAPTURE, and future 1978 SHTP winner Norton Smith skippering his Ericson-41 EOS.

    Tom, could tell us a little more about your adventure?
    Slow reply. It took a while to write a book but you asked for it. :-)

    (Sled – I think we've only met very briefly a couple of times.)

    I got a phone call one evening during the last few weeks of my senior year of high school (Palisades High School, Class of '74) from a man named Art Biehl, owner of Witchcraft. He was from some yacht club I'd never heard of in Northern California – Richmond YC. I had no inkling that 42 years later I'd have been a member of that club for over 30 years.

    One of his crew for the upcoming race had to drop out due to a health issue (anybody remember Dave Killian?) and Art had been asking around at California YC (Marina del Rey) for a replacement. I had been crewing in the local ocean races quite a bit and he'd been referred to me. He was interviewing several potential crew and my dinghy racing experience was a big plus for him. Of course before I could answer I had to see about school, so the next morning I was at the principal’s office. In those more relaxed days all I had to do was to get all my teachers to sign off on agreeing to my absence for the last two weeks of school, and fortunately they all thought that I'd learn a lot more sailing to Tahiti than sitting at a desk.

    So it was a flurry of getting a passport and a one-way ticket home and packing my sea bag. Art had a strict requirement that your entire kit couldn't weigh more than 20 lbs. Including foulies. But somehow I made it to Tahiti with a clean and dry set of shore clothes. I think we did a practice sail or two and sailed Witchcraft down to San Pedro for the start.

    The boat was quite an anomaly for the time, very light, a very crude interior, just 6 pipe berths, a piece of plywood over the keel that might very generously be called a cabin sole, and a fitted bucket under the leaky forward hatch for the head. The sink was a plastic bucket that was also used for rinsing the decks, showers, and whatever else. A large stringer each side under the lower berth formed the storage bins for all the canned food. An air-cooled Wankel engine just aft of the mast step was there to satisfy the requirements; on the rare occasions when actual propulsion was desired, an outboard was hung on the stern but that didn't go along on races. We sailed in and out of the slip. I think Witchcraft was Bill Lee's second design, the first being Magic which I'd watched in amazement from my Dad's Ranger 26 a few years earlier as it passed us quickly in the night on an Ensenada Race. Far more famous than Witchcraft was Chutzpah, hull # 2 from the same mold but with much less ballast and a much taller rig. One step at a time in yacht design. The mold eventually found its way to Lancer Yachts where it became the Lancer 36. “Bill Lee Design!”

    The race was fantastic from my point of view, not because we did well (we didn't) but for the sailing, 24+ days at sea, a wide variety of weather, becoming a shellback with full ceremony, the stunning sunsets rolling in waves of color from horizon to horizon. The other crew (Wally Geer, Bob Lord, and Flamenco dancer and future yacht designer Richard Black) were all great friends and mentors to this young punk.

    Some of the highlights... The lower screw of the headstay turnbuckle broke loudly a couple days out on a windy jib reach, possibly due to its being used to fasten the dock lines (no mooring cleats to save weight). Don't do that! Those were the days of jib hanks and wire luffs in heavy air sails so the rig stayed up. We were able to scavenge parts from the below deck rigging to repair it. And the albatrosses! My favorite bird ever since.

    By far the most exquisite time I've ever experienced at sea was one day in the trade winds when we came upon a vast congregation of dolphins. First a few, then more and more until there were dolphins everywhere as far as you could see in every direction, jumping, tail spinning, surfing 6 or 8 abreast. There had to be at least a thousand of them. It went on for a couple of hours, we were all just sitting there in slack-jawed amazement.

    Even then there was a lot of plastic trash floating around in the ITCZ. Lots of Styrofoam cups. Ugh.

    The skipper had been a navigator in the Navy and it showed. He'd set up for evening or morning stars with a couple of us recording and taking times and come out with 5 or 6 of 7 LOPs in a tight polygon a mile or so across. Art set a really a good example of seamanship. When we got to Papeetee he brought us into the quay (a lee shore) and moored stern-to, anchor off the bow, under sail. Not many people would even attempt that especially in these days of bow thrusters.

    One of the things that has really stayed with me is how close friends you become with the other crew. Night watches are great!

    After the race and a few days on Tahiti and a few on Moorea it was a long plane ride home, then off to school and then a career working on boats. I've always wanted to get back there by boat... maybe an airplane will have to suffice.

    Tom Krase

  4. #1324
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    96

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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    "Who's the Fairest of Them All?"

    My vote would be for the Santa Cruz 27 first built in 1974 on Hilltop in Soquel in Bill Lee's chicken coop boat shop.

    Name:  SC-27.jpg
Views: 1129
Size:  40.1 KB

    About 145 SC-27's were built. Now a 42 year old design, they remain pretty, strong, fast, ocean-worthy, trailerable, cruiseable, and good value.

    http://www.fastisfun.com/wizwisdom/27.html

    Overnight on Oct. 2, 1979, a large swell hit Capitola. The surf was breaking outside the mooring field and over the end of the Wharf. All 15 moored boats off Capitola Main Beach broke loose and were driven ashore. The giant surf quickly broke them into bits and pieces, where their sad remnants were put into dumpsters by Public Works.

    None survived except for the yellow SC-27 CIAO. Before an appreciative early morning crowd, CIAO did three somersaults before landing on the beach. Local boat builder Jeff Tracey hooked up his truck to CIAO and pulled her up on the Esplanade, where she was loaded on a trailer and taken home, little the worse for wear except a broken mast.

    As for being the " fairest" of Santa Cruz built boats, Bill Lee's early brochure for the SC-27 shows just how fair the boat is. Smooth as a baby's butt. Check out the fourth photo.
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...TZlZDVmY2Y1OWM

    I actually have a paper copy of that brochure and price list. They came with the boat. The price list is entertaining in the way it displays shifting costs. Most items have doubled, tripled, quadrupled (or more) in cost over the past 35 years the VHF was very expensive back then. Although, it did have 12 channels!

    And then this past weekend up in Alameda I came across an old girl in dire need of a face lift (and more?). One of the earlier mintings with the recessed running lights in the hull. Still floating but I fear the economics of the situation doom some of these forlorn creatures to finish their days without access to the resources required for the surgery as those who hunt up a 4 or 5 thousand dollar vessel with a good pedigree rarely spend tens of thousands on refurbishment. I did, however, also see what I think was the former Jersey Girl (does anyone else remember the voluptuous girl emblazoned on that rudder?) in the yard the week prior getting a fresh paint topsides and bottom.

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  5. #1325
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Santa Cruz
    Posts
    108

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    (anybody remember Dave Killian?)
    TOM~
    Yes. I remember Dave, I sailed with him and Art both. I sailed on Art's Quasar and helped build Witch craft, Chutzpah, & Panache.

  6. #1326
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    3,485

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    Quote Originally Posted by H Spruit View Post
    (anybody remember Dave Killian?) TOM~
    Yes. I remember Dave, I sailed with him and Art both. I sailed on Art's Quasar and helped build Witch craft, Chutzpah, & Panache.
    Of course you did, Howard. Tell us more.

  7. #1327
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Posts
    50

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnS View Post
    I actually have a paper copy of that brochure and price list. They came with the boat. The price list is entertaining in the way it displays shifting costs. Most items have doubled, tripled, quadrupled (or more) in cost over the past 35 years the VHF was very expensive back then. Although, it did have 12 channels!

    And then this past weekend up in Alameda I came across an old girl in dire need of a face lift (and more?). One of the earlier mintings with the recessed running lights in the hull. Still floating but I fear the economics of the situation doom some of these forlorn creatures to finish their days without access to the resources required for the surgery as those who hunt up a 4 or 5 thousand dollar vessel with a good pedigree rarely spend tens of thousands on refurbishment. I did, however, also see what I think was the former Jersey Girl (does anyone else remember the voluptuous girl emblazoned on that rudder?) in the yard the week prior getting a fresh paint topsides and bottom.

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    The one that gets me is the sail cover for $75. Since that's my business I just priced one, it's $396. Yow!

  8. #1328
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Posts
    50

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    Too bad he didn't get to do the race. For years I carried around my participation trinket from the race with his name on it because the crew change was too late to show up in the paperwork. Really paperwork back then. I think I got rid of that thing while purging before heading to Mexico in the Constellation.
    Tom

  9. #1329
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Posts
    163

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    Rufus finished this restoration October 2015. Dianne Martin, the proud owner. Rufus on the forklift.

  10. #1330
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Capitola,CA
    Posts
    3,338

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    Category 5 Cyclone Winston just scored a bulls-eye on Fiji. Strongest cyclone on record in those waters, causing heartbreaking devastation and a mounting death toll.

    Before landfall, someone officially measured Winston with sustained 160 knot winds, gusting 195 knots. How do they do that?

    Ron Holland checked in aboard M-5, ex-MIRABELLA 5, one of his larger designs. What the hell they were doing cruising Fijian waters this time of year is difficult to fathom. I guess being aboard the largest sloop in the world at 255 feet, air conditioned, with a mast too tall to clear under the Golden Gate bridge, one can mount a certain amount of panache while risking everything.
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    Hope they got the float plane on the aft deck well tied down before the breeze set in.
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    Last edited by sleddog; 02-23-2016 at 06:15 PM.

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