My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

Since I am no longer a boat owner I am having to share other people’s boats or use boats through charter companies. Part of that equation is having to show the boat owners, or at least the ones entrusted by the boat owner, that you are capable of handling their vessel. The various organization such as ASA, US Sailing and US Power Squadron have developed certification programs that set standards to make that process more or less universal.

Everyone who has been sailing for a long time will know that you are always learning new skills and techniques. Regardless how advanced you certifications say you might be, there will be circumstances that you have not come across, new harbors you have not been in and new crew whom you have not sailed with. Part of being a good sailor is to adapt and react in any circumstance you come across.

My sailing club has a somewhat unorthodox system of completing each training and checkout of each boat in the fleet. As it is an all volunteer group of instructors and members, you often train and checkout with different people for different boats. It seems that the more sailing experience you have as a sailing instructor, the more you want to improve and change the methods set by your predecessors. This is the kind of stuff you hear sailing instructors banter about in the club house, on the docks or over their favorite bottle of chardonnay.

Since I am not a racer I will not even pretend to be any kind of an expert on sail trim. As long as I am moving forward at a reasonable speed given the condition, I am a happy sailor. I have heard it all from racers who talk about how much racing has improved their cruising and I really don’t doubt that. I am just not in that big of a hurry. Let’s face it, if I was, I wouldn’t be sailing. It’s the techniques like Man over board, close quarter maneuvering, throttle control, heaving to, reefing, anchoring and such that I have a little bit of a problem with from the perspective of having been a student with many instructors in the past.

I have picked up a little bit of insight on pretty much every aspect of sailing from all the sailing instructors I have ever worked with. The only thing that I can gleam from it all is that I will ultimately be developing my own set of skills based on my observations. Sure I will need to do what is required to get the certifications that I need at the time; even if it means changing my preferred methods temporarily to accommodate the instructor at hand; I will most likely go back to doing what I am most comfortable with.

Let’s take the Man Over Board maneuver as an example. This might be the single most discussed topic that instructor like to talk about when it comes to what is best. It is one of the most complex maneuvers for a novice sailor. It involves performing under pressure, staying calm, sail trim, tacking, speed control, helm control and giving directions to your crew. Every one of those affect the outcome of the job at hand. ASA officially endorses the Figure 8 and has been for many years. I have heard differing opinion from different ASA certified instructors of their own version of this procedure. Best points of sail, distance before tacking, may day or no may day call, release the jib or back-wind the jib, everyone has been trying to get me to buy in to their ideals. I feel like at some point, too much instruction starts to negatively effect your growth as a sailor.

Maybe it is just human nature to try to improve on what’s already in place. I am certainly one to always find a better way to skin the cat (sorry Yoda), but I am seeing a good number of beginning sailors in this club who are caught in the middle of these ambiguities. They get frustrated because every instructor teach every technique just different enough so they end up confused and not learning anything at all. The fact that everyone is a volunteer in this club often produce the kind if instructors who might be out there pushing their own brand of sailing certification.

I know I have been complaining a bit in the last couple of posts about some of the problems with my new sailing arrangement. It is actually much better than how I am making it seem. I have been sailing a lot more than this past year before I sold the O’Day and also meeting a lot of local sailors whom I would not have met otherwise. I am really not looking to change anything about the club as they have gotten most things right where others have not. After all, what is the blog if you don’t get to complain and voice your opinion at least a little bit…

Now get out there and practice some MOB maneuvers.

Since I am now boatless, I needed access to sailboats bigger than the Walker Bay 310 RID. Having not the best experience with some of the commercial charter companies in my area, I came across a Craig’s List posting about Fairwind Yacht Club.

FYC is a co-operative, non-profit yacht club run by the members themselves. It offers a fleet of boats from both Channel Islands Harbor as well as Marina Del Rey at unbeliveably reasonable prices. Compared to other commercial charter businesses that charge you a membership fee plus hefty per use fees for their boats, Fairwind sustains itself by a nominal membership fee and the support and sweat of its own members. Each member is expected to volunteer in helping out with any and all aspects of the club. From changing engine oil to training new members on the use of their boats. Everyone chips in which allows the club to grow as a community. Using an online boat reservation system and each member’s honesty, everyone gets a fair share of use on their fleet of boats. As the memberships grow, a formula is used to determine whether or not new boats will be added to the fleet or if new memberships are to be capped.

It seem too good to be true at first when I looked into the price but after becoming a member, it makes a lot of sense the way the club operates. As an ex-member of a commercial charter club in the past where no one cared to put forth the extra effort in the boat upkeep since the company gouged you with exorbitant rates, FYC members have a particular kin-ship with each other as well as the fleet of boats that is similar to owning your own boat.

The club originated in the 1960’s out of a group of Hughes Aviation engineers in Marina Del Rey. It is now over 200 members strong in the MDR area and attempting to start a second chapter in the Oxnard, CA area based out of Channel Islands Harbor. There are no fancy club houses or six-digit salaries for the club officers but just a group of people who enjoy sailing and each others company.

If you are in the area looking to meet people who love to sail whether you own a boat or not, I’d highly recommend checking them out.

This afternoon we went to the new Brophy Brothers restaurant that opened in Ventura Harbor and I took a panoramic photo and turned it into my new desktop. Feel free to use it as yours if you like it.

(Processed by Autostitch)

Click on the image to download full size wallpaper. It is designed for 1920×1200 monitors.

In the last few posts I’ve been talking about trying to find someone to rent a boat from in the SoCal area. I have gotten a couple of responses but nothing that really works for my schedule. People are concerned with renting to a stranger for insurance reasons and many others. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to look into joining a club just to see what the cost will be. Being ASA certified made it pretty easy as pretty much all chartering companies will required you to go through the process at an additional cost if you are not already. There are a number of companies in the Long Beach area but the one I decided to join is one called Marina Sailing.

Marina sailing is less like a club and more like a charter company. There are 6 locations all up and down the coast from Oxnard down to San Diego. There are over 20 additional sister companies that offer reciprocal memberships across the country which makes it even nicer. Most if not all of their boats are owned by individuals who chose to place their vessel with them to reduce the cost of ownership. It’s a pretty standard practice with chartering companies who do not wish to own their fleet so they can bring new boats into service without breaking their bank.

The upfront fee for becoming a member is 295 bucks plus a refundable $100 deposit. Monthly fees are 29 bucks and you pay for 3 months in advance. So that’s almost 500 bucks to get in before you even set foot on any of their boats. On the other hand, it is much cheaper when compared to owning your own yacht. Especially if you don’t go out every weekend.

Their fleet range anywhere from 25 ft all the way up to 50+ foot sailboats. Between all the locations I think there is only 1 powerboat but it might be an area they are trying to grow into. Daily rentals are from 8am to 8am with prices ranging from 150 bucks all the way up to 600 bucks a day for the big ones. During the week they will allow people to take the boat out for half or quarter days at pretty reasonable rates. Being in Ventura, I can take a boat out in the summer time after work out of the Channel Islands Harbor location and come back before sunset for a nice little BBQ on the boat before heading home.

I just joined last weekend and hopefully will get a chance to take one of the yachts out in the next couple of weeks to see how the processes works. Booking is done via a Web scheduling tool. Although not very aesthetically pleasing, it seems to be functional. If anyone in the Ventura/Oxnard area is interested in splitting the charter fee to go sailing just shoot me an email. I’m looking forward to getting out on the water this spring…

Tillerman at Proper Course is a competitive Laser sailor and he recently blogged about the larger and keeled big brother of the original laser, the SB3. Although the O’Day 22 is not a performance oriented boat and my modest sailing goals are mainly cruising the California coast, I must admit that a light yet stable keelboat with such a huge sail plan that planes in relatively light air makes my saliva flow and pupils dilate just a little.

Even since I played Virtual Skipper 4 during my sailing hiatus and piloted the digital rocket sled, I’ve been dreaming about sailing a planing, keeled sloop. The SB3 is similar to the Melges 24 but a couple of feet shorter and a little less expensive (relatively). The big problem is that it is not that readily available in the US.

Here is a little video of rigging the SB3

Sailing the SB3

One day I will own a fast keelboat. One day.