Sailing World

taken for a ride

On the exterior wall of the Santa Barbara YC is a notice board. Tacked to the cork is a flyer that reads in large letters: “Hitch Hiker Wet Wednesday.” If I’m looking to go sailing, I’m at the right place. It’s the middle of March, the air along California’s central coast is cool and the water cooler. The San Rafael Mountains are lush green and blooming after destructive wildfires and the rains that followed. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon, and like most California yacht clubs this time of year, the place is quiet, but the grills are set up and the yardarm is fluttering with burgees and signal flags Photographer Paul Todd and I follow instructions on the flyer, which explains that, if I’m interested in hitching a ride in the club’s…

sailing world

EDITOR DAVE REED Creative Director Dave Weaver Managing Editor Stephanie Pancratz Copy Editor T.L. Favors Editors at Large Peter Isler, Gary Jobson, Dave Powlison Racing Editors Ed Baird, Andy Horton, Steve Hunt, Terry Hutchinson, Mike Ingham, Jonathan McKee, Tony Rey Contributing Editors Kimball Livingston, Angus Phillips, Dick Rose, David Schmidt SAILING WORLD EDITORIAL OFFICE 55 Hammarlund Way, Middletown, RI 02842 401-845-5100; fax 401-845-5180 sailingworld.com, editor@sailingworld.com REPRINTS: Email reprints@bonniercorp.com WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER GUIDELINES: Send stories and photos to Sailing World (address above) or via email (editor@sailingworld.com). FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Sign up to receive our weekly SW e-newsletter at sailingworld.com. BONNIER MEDIA Vice President, Managing Director Glenn Sandridge Editorial Director Shawn Bean Creative Director Dave Weaver Editorial Operations Director Stephanie Pancratz Copy Chief Cindy Martin Group Marketing Director Haley Bischof Digital Content Production and Presentation Director Michellina Jones Digital Producer Jeff Williams Chairman Lars Dahmén Chief Executive Officer Eric Zinczenko Chief Financial Officer Joachim Jaginder Executive Vice President, Bonnier Media Gregory D. Gatto Executive Vice President,…

fresh arrivals

Jon Partridge plants his feet wide and firm on the asphalt, then leans into his cordless drill as its titanium bit gouges a hole into a blue metal mobile-storage rack. The bit screeches until it finally plunges into the frame’s hollow. One down, many more holes to go. He stands upright, arches his back to stretch, then pulls his cellphone from his pocket to take a call from the home office in England, many time zones away from San Diego. The skin on the back of his neck is flaking off in large pieces, seared from a week of assembling, shadowing and filming his brand-new fleet of keelboats. As one of three directors of powerhouse small-boat builder, RS Sailing, Partridge should be in a corner office back at HQ, but no,…

a fleet in the forest

Upper St. Regis Lake, New York, is an off-the-beaten-path destination where members of St. Regis YC savor their anonymity. For more than 100 years, summer residents of this eclectic Adirondack enclave have combined a “great camp” lifestyle with a passion for a summer-long regatta. But the big news about this fleet in the forest is the ancient 32-foot one-design sloop that remains the club’s focal point. My interest in Idem sloops grew out of a chance encounter at a Safety at Sea Seminar in Larchmont, New York. A seminar attendee approached me during a break and asked if I’d ever heard of an Idem sloop. The sailboat and its name weren’t familiar, so I asked for further details. Ogden Reid introduced himself as a lifelong Idem sailor and summer resident of Upper…

the influencer

A surreal emotion sweeps over me as I peel back the stiff canvas cover, exposing my Interlake to the warm July morning sun. The routine of rigging my boat before the day’s race will be the same as it’s always been, but this time, the experience will be different. Dad is no longer beside me, meticulously preparing the boat as he always did, checking control lines for chafe, inspecting every bit of hardware and gliding his hands over the foils to confirm their perfection. That’s how we would rig my Interlake together—until 2012, when cancer suddenly took him. It’s amazing how a simple sound can extract a memory from deep within. When I hear water slapping the Interlake’s flared bow, its hard chine sluicing through a choppy Sandusky Bay, just as…

adult summer camp’s new home

The future was looking grim for Whidbey Island Race Week. The annual July invasion of the quiet confines of the Washington island’s Oak Harbor and Penn Cove was waning. What once decades ago numbered 150 boats petered to 60-something. Small boats couldn’t get launched because the city wouldn’t fix the crane. Bigger boats couldn’t get into the marina because the channel wasn’t dredged. National sponsors took a pass. It appeared the wind-delay water fights, shoreside volleyball and golf tournaments, epic bowling nights and bacon-offs in the campground would evaporate, as so many race weeks have around the country. But the soggy sailors of the Salish Sea had pulled the “Adult Summer Camp” from the jaws of death before and weren’t ready to give up on it now. Race Week owner Schelleen Rathkopf…