Sailing through the decades, starting with a 'Banshee' sailboat

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - On the same day as I wrote a column for the Finger Lakes Times about friendships across the decades, an intriguing message arrived via Facebook from a shirttail relative.
     How shirttail?
     She is the great-granddaughter of my late cousin Barbara Puls. I don't have enough graph paper to draw out how we are related. So Mary Emily and I just call each other cousin - just like my many Mexicano friends do in Arroyo Seco, Mexico.

Rigging the Banshee for  Chautauqua Lake

     Mary Emily contacted me because she wondered if I could give her some information about a sailboat her grandmother said had once belonged to me.
     It certainly did - in 1968.
     1968. Jaysus!
   In the decades between, the sailboat, called a Banshee and manufactured by MFG boats in Union City, PA had passed from me to my Uncle Gordy and Aunt Ethel Puls (Mary Emily's great-great grandparents). Then it became the responsibility of my late cousin Barbara and down through her side of the family chain, ending up with Mary Emily.
     Mary Emily said she and her father were resuscitating the Banshee to get it back on the water.

     Talk about a memory jolt!

     I had so many flashbacks of sailing the Banshee on Chautauqua Lake that I couldn't write them down fast enough.
     (Don't worry, I won't relate them all here.)
     But seeing the boat being used again - and in amazingly good shape - has filled my heart in ways that are impossible to describe.
   My mother, Evelyn F. Fitzgerald Sr., bought the Banshee for me not long after I started college. We traded in the family's sporty ski boat (an MFG 14-footer with a 50 hp Mercury) to get the sailboat. Then I cruised Chautauqua as much as I could, dreaming of going to far distant places. A sunny afternoon, the Banshee loaded with a cooler of beer (and potato chips, of course) made it seem like I had a much bigger vessel under my command.
     My mom, as was her standard operating procedure, nervously looked the other way when I took off on days that were simply just way too windy for the small boat. But because I did go out when no one in their right mind should have, I learned about wind, waves and that a boat will take care of you, if you treat it properly.
    The Banshee stayed in New York when I moved to California in August of 1970.
   But within a few years in Petaluma, Calif. I bought an eight-foot wooden El Toro style sailboat dubbed The Guppy. My son Jason Fitzgerald and I sailed that all over, some times bailing as we went when the Guppy's fiberglassed seams would leak. After owning a mahogany cabin cruiser for a couple of years I sold it and went back to sailing for good.
     Over the next two decades I owned a 14-foot Lido sailboat, followed by a 17-foot O'Day Daysailer, then a 26-foot Windrose sloop, a 40-foot Swift ketch and finally the queen of the fleet, a custom 48-foot Maple Leaf sloop.
     The Maple Leaf - named Sabbatical (as was its predecessor the 40-foot Swift ketch) - fulfilled the cruising dreams launched by the Banshee. Admiral Fox and I set sail from San Francisco Bay and meandered as far south as Zihuatenejo, Mexico, stopping in many dozens of ports and anchorages for more than six years.
    The Banshee, piloted now by Mary Emily. was never given a proper name. It was just the Banshee. It was apropos because that's how fast the boat is. It's goes like a bloody Banshee, even in relatively light winds
     But I'll bet my cousin Mary Emily will figure out a great moniker. Or maybe she will just keep with the Banshee. It is a historic vessel, after all.
     For me I'm thrilled - just thrilled - that my first sailboat sails on. And that my cousin has taken the helm.

The Banshee sails again

The Banshee on her maiden voyage under command of Capt. Mary Emily

Sabbatical leaves San Diego on the way to Mexico

The only weather you control is whether you go out...

   POINT RICHMOND - Maritime bromides are filling my mind as I write about, read and ponder the coronavirus/COVID-19 situation.
     Situation. Now there's a damned vanilla word for this !@#%$#^#%$^$%#& mess.
     I am gradually turning into a coronavirus curmudgeon, a function of writing stories about the impacts of the disease - while also trying to write pieces that squash the swirling morass of misinformation out there about the origin of the disease.
     I won't repeat any of the nonsense now circulating.
   But Friday morning I spent more than an hour on a national media conference with other journalists (via Zoom) getting a briefing from medical experts on COVID-19 . The biggest takeaway is the same one being one hammered relentlessly for the last few weeks:

 Stay home.

     There's tons of messaging out there about this. But these docs were even more persuasive about protecting yourself - and others. It's actually so simple, it's pathetic. Stay home, hide out... Don't go to the store for Mallo Cups.
     (Wait! Aren't Mallo Cup-shopping runs exempt?)

   In our years of cruising our sailboat Sabbatical in the ocean and around San Francisco Bay, we often heard (and repeated) the expression, "The only weather you can control is whether you go out."
     Go out refers to leaving the dock, harbor or anchorage where you are sitting safe and secure.
     Once you hoist sails and embark you are in the weather, no matter how benign or battering it proves to be.
     More than once we discovered going out into sketchy weather was a mistake.
     And COVID-19?
     Provided you are keeping yourself secure inside your domicile, practicing good anti-virus hygiene in the house, and keeping outsiders, well, well outside, you are likely controlling 'whether' you are being exposed to the virus.
     But the best advice I read in the last 24 hours says to think of yourself as infected. Thus, by keeping inside and away from people you are protecting them! Looking at it that way makes it even more persuasive.
     Yesterday I drove Biscuit to a deserted parking lot on the edge of the Bay where he loves to take afternoon sniff tours. We were nearly alone, the only other humans were two bird watchers braving 15-knot cold winds off the water. By the way, the birders were scanning the skies and shoreline for sea gulls.
     Sea gulls, you know, rats of the sky.
     On the way home we drove by a half-acre dog park adjacent to a Point Richmond elementary school where there must have been 50 dogs and 100+ people wandering about.
     The dogs were far better at keeping social distance than the people. Most dog parks are off the list for now.
   Biscuit and I are discussing today whether we should continue to take our one daily outing to the ferry landing parking lot or suck it up and stay home.
     So far, his arguments to go take the drive are persuasive.
     We'll see.
     In the meantime, unless your dog convinces you of his or her need to step outside into the world, stay inside.
     It's the safest.

The Biscuit prefers going outside to sheltering-in-place

Another day, another fiesta, and yes, another parade

BARRA DE NAVIDAD, Jalisco, Mexico - We went to Barra de Navidad Tuesday afternoon to bid bon voyage to cruisers Dan & Lorraine Olsen, soon to depart for ports of call to the south, perhaps venturing as far as Ecuador.

But before we could get through the downtown to the pangas to take us out to their vessel, anchored snugly in the Barra lagoon, we found outselves in the middle of a Constitution Day parade that had as many gringos in it as local folks.


Carnival queens in Barra de Navidad


Even the burros got to parade

The wind was howling on our way out to the lagoon - a reminder of many of Sabbatical's forays in the same waterway. The last time I was in Barra aboard a sailboat (on Sabbatical with Captain Sanders Lamont aboard) we had consistent 40-knot winds for several days, driving many cruisers to put out extra anchors and forcing them to hunker down on their boats in case their anchors let go.

We hung out in the marina, tied safely to a dock, sipping margaritas, pina coladas and a variety of other fruit-based beverages until the wind dropped to an acceptable level.

I'm not sure what caused it, exactly, but on our way in, we saw on 35-40 foot sailboat that might have misjudged the narrow (and unmarked) channel that morning and run aground. And because of the wind and falling tide, he was living a sailor's nightmare, his only hope a good high tide the next day.


Sailboat high and dry in Barra Lagoon

But there was a good-news boating story out of the whole enterprise. Dan Olsen was able to get a part fabricated for his engine, using a spare bit of plumbing obtained here in La Manzanilla from my amigo Tom. He was as proud as a new parent of the piece which he will be keeping in reserve for his exhaust system.


Captain Dan and his new boat part

Preparing the sailing dinghy for a return to Mexico

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - My much loved - and much-used - sailing dinghy was in the Land Park boatyard & repair shop today, getting fixed so it will be ready to challenge the waters of Tenacatita Bay in only about a month.

The 10-foot craft, nicknamed the Captain's Gig when it was a tender to Sabbatical in our cruising days, was badly banged up on the trip back from Puerto Vallarta two years ago. The damage was sufficient enough that a local fiberglass repair shop told me to simply buy a new hull and forget about repairs.

The manufacturer, however, said that was pure poppycock and that it should be repaired. (Actually, I believe they said it was total bullshit, but did not offer to repair it themselves.)

So today Sabbatical's retired Chief Engineer, Scott Noble, came over with sanders, cutters, vacuums, air compressors and other instruments of mass construction and began the restoration project.

I did a lot of watching, punctuated by mixing up fiberglass to put into the various cracks and crevices through which copious amounts of water most certainly would come in without the repairs.

The whole job will take a few days with the drying time needed for the fiberglass, sanding, and eventually, a coat of paint. Now that I've seen how the Chief Engineer did it, I'll attempt to fix a couple of other areas that are less critical.

When it's done, the repaired Captain's Gig should look like this.


A sistership under sail in Puget Sound

In between mixing resin and activator - and handing tools to Scott - I shot the video below: