Back to the 70's life on a boat #1 finding a boat

My son ask me to find the paper work I saved from the time we spent on our boat  RACHA`KA.

She is a sailing boat. A stretch 38 footer, sea worthy and was our home.

We bought her in 1974 and sailed up and down the Southern California coast, along both coasts of Baja, Mexico, in to the Sea of Cortez and along the Channel Islands of California. Our home harbor was San Diego, Coronado Golf Course was our front door.

We left Denver, Colorado in 1974 after spending time looking for and finding a boat to buy.

I am finding bits and pieces so the memories will come back that way. I will try to tell this story in somewhat of a chronological order.

When we made the decision to buy a boat and go sailing full time, we jumped in whole hog. !!

We took Lessons from the U.S.Coast Guard. The boat had to be registered with them. Since we were in Denver, our nearest Port was St. Louis ! We took some ribbing over that, "How did you sail over the mountains ??" The teachers were glad to have some one who was going to sea. There was another couple in our class who was going to sea also. We learned the rules of the road, Port and Starboard, Red and Green. How to enter and leave a Port. How to read a Chart (map). How to navigate with out seeing land. How to use a sextant. How to use the stars and the sun to tell you where you are on the water. What tide charts and currant charts are and how to use them. We were on a sail boat so the wind was our power. We became very much in tune with the weather. We learned about sea anchors and how to sail on waves that are so high and so powerful that if they crash over you they will break your boat and you will sink.
We learned about keeping on course with a compass. It was a very complete course and we had to pass a test at the end. We all felt we gained knowledge we would use, and we did.

When we started talking about this my idea of a boat was a water ski boat on a reservoir. That is also all the children had been on. My husband Ray was a dependent in Japan and attended Keslerasu High School on an Air force Base. The Commander owned a Ship and the kids would take her out and learned to sail. So he had been on sailing ships.

We borrowed a motorhome and went to San Diego to go Yacht shopping. We were lucky and met Carlos the president of the wooden hull owners association who was a yacht sales man. He rode in the motorhome with us for days and showed us lots of boats. He became a good friend. He owned many flower shops. I learned what Frangipani was. We had a real adventure with him, helping to  move his boat, but that is another story.

Finally I had enough boat rides to know I was not going to live my life tilted over at ???degrees. Sail boats do not go any where when the weather is clear, the sun is shining, and there is no breeze ! and they are sitting upright ! they have to be heeled over and cutting thru the water. That is why their stoves are on gimbals so they can pivot- their cabinets have rails so the dishes do not fall out, and so on. No Thanks.

So Carlos was in a quandary. He had spent all this time with these nice people and may not sell them any thing, because this woman was really unreasonable !!! She didn't know any thing about boats or sailing.

He found a Brown Sea Runner Trimaran in San Diego Harbor. She was built by a man from Seattle. She had all the right paper work. Browns were known to be good designs. Being built in the north west she had seen cold weather and cold seas. A Tri has a deep main hull and two out rigger like hulls. She floats like a raft. Carlos knew about catamarans, they were the hot set up on the race boat scene. They have two hulls.

This was more like it. She would sail flat, well almost flat. And she was wide so we would have lots of room ..... Carlos, The builder, Ray, The kids and I set sail. It was a great day, sunny a good breeze about 8 knots so we sailed around San Diego Harbor. Nothing scary but fast enough to tack a few times and show us how she sailed. I liked the fact that the center cockpit gave you a sense of security, you sat down in the boat. I also liked that the children would each have there own space for their bunk and extra room to just be by them selves, not just in bed. Ray liked the sail set up and the high aspect mast. So we gave him some money and went back to Denver to sell our life, over 10 years of life !

More to come