Malo sits

Malo sits like a horse in a paddock,

like a bird in a cage,

like a fish in a tank,

longing for freedom.  

She truly is a pelagic creature,

made for the open ocean. 

It's probably just me 

but I imagine that she

longs to spread her sails

and head out to sea

where she belongs 

and I feel at home.

We're headed in the right direction,

now it's just a matter of 

time, tide & good fortune 

and then we may have our wish.

Dreaming of the sea,

Dan

Where we're headed?

The short answer is Mexico and beyond but that’s only a place, the true answer is a bit more involved and wise folks know that true places are never found on a map .  For the past year we’ve been working real hard preparing Malo and our lives to go Cruising.  Our plan, time & tides willing, is to head out of our home port of Newport Oregon on or about September 1st 2017 heading south.  We’re going to take a leisurely trip down the coast, poking into interesting harbors along the way, exploring the Channel Islands, arriving in the San Diego area end of October.  We’re plan on checking into Mexico around November 1st and then take big hops down the West coast of Mexico to Zihuatanejo in search of warm water weather.  From there we’ll turn around and head north eventually reaching the Baja and the Sea of Cortez. 

So those are the places but our real destination is warm water, fun and adventure.  While those places are not on any maps we’re hoping that we’ll be headed someplace we’ll be able to find what we truly seek.  

Prepping for new windows. 

After all the hard work that we’ve been putting in on Malo we got a precious glimpse of our true destination when we took my new paddle board, Bev’s board and our new dinghy out on Dexter Lake for sea trials.  We had gotten the dinghy, an Achilles LSI-310 plus a Tohatsu 9.8hp, 4 stroke motor to push it at Northwest Inflatable Boats on Hayden Island in Portland OR last winter.  They gave us the discount that they were going to offer at the upcoming boat show plus a whole lot if information about setting it all up.  Good guys.  

We picked a set of transom wheels from Amazon.  They well help us in those long beaches down in Mexico.  In the mean time they worked great on our local boat ramp.

                                        

It was wonderful to get out where we belong, on the water and play.  

The new board seemed to do well.  I'm looking forward to getting more into this sport.  I'm especially looking forward to trying it some easy surf without too many witnesses.  

                                     

It was so wonderful to be doing something other that just work and truly wonderful to see a big smile on Bev’s face.  Afterwards we both felt rejuvenated and closer to our destination. 

It’s hard keeping up our energy and enthusiasm when faced with over a year of seemingly endless labor but the end is in sight, just 6 months from now, fortune willing, we'll be off to Mexico.  

This Sailing Journey - Where we've been and where we are now...

So Malo it was.  Malo means bad in Spanish.  We like to think of her as "Solo un poco malo" or; just a little bad.  

                              

We completed the usual negotiations and subsequent survey in short order and then she was ours.  Our broker, Norman Davant of Sail California was good enough to let us stay at their broker's dock for the next 3 months while we prepared Malo for the trip home.  That involved taking a 40' neglected daysailer/weekender and getting her offshore capable.  To that end we:

• Checked all thru hull fittings and added damage control plugs.
• Cleaned the bilges
• Fixed the bilge pumps
• Had the engine checked and sorted
• Replaced the raw water pump
• Installed a hydraulic autopilot
• Replace the binnacle guard and compass
• Installed a new chart plotter
• Replaced the radar
• Added AIS-B transponder (automatic identification system)
• Installed a depth sounder
• Replaced faulty hatch latches
• Cleaned the water tanks
• Beefed up the old dodger frame and had a new dodger cover made 
• Cleared the main sail track
• Installed new wind instruments
• Replaced the interior lights with LEDs
• Installed new fire extinguishers and smoke alarms
• Bought a new life raft 
• New anchor
• New propane tank
• Replaced navigation lights with LEDs
• Had the boat hauled out and the Max prop re-pitched to eliminate excessive vibration
• Secured the companion way steps
• Repaired & serviced the head
• Made a ditch kit
• Provisioned for the trip

That all took 3 months but we were finally ready to go to sea.  So early one fine morning in June of 2016, with a decent looking weather window, we cast off and headed out the sea:

                               

Even with the good forecast it was a hard trip because we were going against the prevailing winds and current.  As the crow flies it's only about a 500 nm trip but Malo ain't no crow and sailboats can't go directly up wind.  We had to beat to windward all the way to Newport Oregon traveling 900 nm in the process.  It took us 6 days to get to Newport but when we arrived the bar was closed due to the size of the seas so we had to stand off-and-on all night until the next day when they opened the bar and we could safely enter the harbor.  

                               

That was a hard test for us but a very good one for Malo.  In spite of blowing out her hydraulic backstay adjuster and shipping a lot of water through windows that sorely needed replacement, she came through with flying colors.  I must say that I've come to love that boat.  We're just getting to know one another and I'm very much looking forward to getting to know her much better such as trying out the new code 1 gennaker sail that North Sails made for her.  

She's a great upwind boat, knifing to windward like a mad witch but I suspect that she's even better off the wind and fingers crossed, touch wood, I think she will make very good use of a following sea too.  There is an old sailing expression that you've probably heard of; "by and large".  Back in the days of wooden ships and iron men, sailors use that expression to describe the complete range of a boat's capability. "By" the wind means sailing close as possible to the wind, what today we call close hauled and "large" refers to sailing downwind, today that is called running.  So the old time sailors would describe a boat's overall range of sailing as "by-and-large she's a good sailing vessel" as Malo truly is.  

In the mean time we've still got much to do to make her a good cruising boat.  The floor boards have all just been sanded and varnished.  We're just finishing up installing an outboard motor lift that should make getting the O/B motor a lot easer to get from the boat to the dinghy and back.  Bev has been busy installing new sound insolation inside the engine compartment.  Our next really big project is to install 3 large solar panels on the bimini along with a MPPT charge controller.  Now that the weather is improving I've got to get up the mast again to replace the combination steaming/deck light.  September 1st, we'll be ready.  That's our mantra.  

How this all started...

Many years ago on a beach out on Cape Cod Beverly (long before she became my wife) and me (long before I became her husband) were windsurfing, something that we had been doing with increasing frequency since she had introduced me to the sport.  Cape Cod has untold miles of beautiful beaches and this was one of them but sadly access to those beaches was quickly becoming limited.  One by one, many of our favorite “hidden” spots were becoming restricted and unavailable to us.  But on this beautiful day, after driving 3 hours from home we were in.  We were at a beautiful little beach, the sky was clear and the wind was blowing.  We rigged our sails quickly, grabbed our boards and we we're off.  While were were sailing around I noticed a nice sloop anchored just off the beach and got an idea.  Later when we both headed into the beach for some lunch I shared my epiphany with Bev; If we had a boat all the beaches of the world would be open to us.  I don’t remember her response but she seemed to like the idea.  Sadly Bev and I parted ways but the idea of a boat granting me magic-carpet-like access to all the beaches of the world never left me. 

Much water has passed under both our transoms since the those early innocent days exploring the beaches of Cape Cod.  Two marriages, one each for the both of us to other people, two beautiful children for Beverly's, none for me.  We tried to come together but the time and situation didn't favor us sadly we parted ways again, the second time, seemed much harder than the first for the both of us.  We were both fortunate that our health has held and out hearts have never lost it's fondness for the other.  

I retired in 2009, sailed for a year and then came back to ground.  I drove around the country and ended up settling in Eugene Oregon.  I fell in love with the place.  Bought a house and reconnected with Beverly.  In 2012 she came out to visit.  In 2013 I drove back east to visit her and on the spur of the moment we got married with plans for Bev to retire and move out to Eugene the following year.  After settling in for a year Bev got the itch to go sailing.  I had been crewing on a friends beautiful trimaran every summer since I move out here and doing the occasional delivery.  So my sailing jones was sated, not so for Bev.  So we started looking at boats.  I tend to be picky about boats which usually involves looking at lots of them before buying.  Bev, not so much.  After traveling to inspect the 4th  or 5th prospect that was subsequently rejected Beverly started to get a little surly with questions like; "What was wrong with that one?"  and "I want to do more that just look at boats." 

At the beginning of our search we happened across a boat of a model that I'd never seen or even heard of before, a C&C 37/40.  Besides being beautiful this boat has a modern hull form, deep keel with the mass set low in a torpedo shaped form at the bottom of the keel.  They are also light boats with lots of kevlar and a cored hull.  It was love as first site that got even better with the knowing.

                              

Unfortunately I spent a few weeks researching the model and thinking about that one in particular, when I called the broker she was long sold.  We then narrowed our search, focusing mostly on C&C 37/40s.  The next one that came on the market in the Northwest I called with in a week but unfortunately they already had an offer on her plus an incredible 8 backup offers.  The broker asked me if I'd like him to add my name to the back-up offer list which I declined.  I wanted a boat and not join a scrum.  Fortune seems to favor the persistent.  We widened out search area to include California and immediately found one in San Francisco Bay.  So off we were like a shot to Alameda were we found an under used, beautiful example of her type, Malo. 

One More Time

One more time, that’s what I want, which is what just about every other sailor worth his or her salt wants, just one more good sail.  One more chance to feel that wonderful, uplifting, unrelenting magic of buoyancy, the wind in one’s face, that is the same as the wind that fills the sails, moves the boat and the crew forward, that is made from the same life-giving substance that we breath in and out, tens of thousands of times every day.   It pushes us always forward and is apart of the great wind that is the breath of our planet.  The same wind that drives the oceans, makes the waves and pushes the major currents that circulate around our planet.

My older brother and I sailing out 

of Pokai Bay Oahu about 1961

One more time, one more chance to work, play, laugh and thrill with fellow sailors, brothers and sisters, all children of the watery world.  To go up and down together, get splashed in the face and grow callouses on our hands together.  To sail on, watch upon watch.  To sleep when another is watching and then to stand your own watch and maintain vigilance while the other rest.  One more chance to gaze mindlessly out over the endless row-upon-row of blue waves out to the invisible line which is the horizon and above that into the sky-blue-sky that is so often filled with and infinite variety of gossamer clouds.

Once more, or has the last time, been my last time of doing anything such as rock climbing, I probably won't be doing that again:

Twilight Zone the Gunks

...tree climbing, it could happen, biking, yes again, backpacking, I hope to again, cross country skiing, could go either way, building a house, doubtful but you never know, hitchhiking to Canada, that’s history, kayaking decidedly yes again, stand up paddle boarding, I’m just getting started on that.  “Little deaths”, that’s what a friend calls it when you have to give up doing something you love.  Usually because of age related issues.  But for me, I knew it in my soul, that I still had some sailing in front of me, enabled by the generosity of other sailboat owners, but I had fully accepted that boat ownership, with all it's rich rewards, cost and hard work involved, was squarely in the past for me.  That was until my wife, Beverly set her heart on cruising.  She can be a very determined woman and it doesn’t take much effort, even on a bad day, to convince me to get a boat.

I’ve been sailing since I was a wee lad; both US coasts, Atlantic & Pacific, Hawaii & Bermuda too.  I’ve sailed in and out of three different Newports (RI, CA & OR), two Portlands (MA & OR) Boston, New York, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.  I’ve cruised from the Canadian Boarder all the way down to the Grenadines in the Caribbean and the whole of the East Coast in-between plus Central America.   Besides a bunch of bla bla bla, it’s a whole lot of water under my transom and a big boat load of memories of many amazing and wonderful sails.  You tend to forget the awful ones, of those fortunately there were few.

I’ve skippered or crewed a Sabot, Sail Fish, Moth, Lido, Capri, Enterprise, Force Five, Flying Junior, Windmill, Rebel, Thistle, Flying Dutchmen, Corsair Sprint, Champion, S2, Knockabout, Soling, Satalina 27, International 210, Dragon, Pearson 34, Sabre 37, Formosa Ketch, CSY 44, Luders 44 yawl:

a Beneteau 500 and the tall ship Rose now named the HMS Surprise:

I’ve also owned two 5o5s, an F 31 trimaran:

a Dean 400 catamaran:

a Sabre 42:

and now a now Malo a C&C 37/40:

They were all good boats, of course some better and/or more memorable then others and they are all, somehow, indelibly burnt into my now, very forgetful memory.

Boats seem to come and go in my life but what has remained constant is my love of sailing and for that one must, by necessity, have at least access if not out right ownership of a boat.  In the autumn of my life I can't but wonder how cruising under sail will be with this old body.  When I was young I use to be able to climb a mast by myself.  Later but still many years ago, when I sailed with Beverly I couldn't do that but she could hoist me up using the genoa winche which she can no longer do but we've figured out that if we combine what little strength we have left by her cranking on a winche and me climbing with ascenders I can still get it up (oh, eer, ahhh) I mean that I can still get up it.