I started sailing at age 11, when my dad got the bug and bought an
11-ft plywood dinghy. The whole family learned together, sailing on
South Bay and various lakes and reservoirs. Bigger boats and sailing
vacations followed, plus cruising with my father after he retired,
mostly in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. After becoming a mechanical
engineer and the distraction of many years of SCCA amateur auto racing,
I bought my first sailboat in 1996.
I thought I'd mostly be a cruiser, but I soon tried racing and liked
it. I also tried singlehanding and liked it. Since I already knew
I liked long ocean passages, I guess it was only a matter of time
before I drank the SSS Kool-Aid and signed up for the Singlehanded
TransPac.
Solar Wind is my second boat, a Martin 32 built in 1980 in the Vancouver,
BC area. It's a great sailing boat that (positive spin) affords many
opportunities for creative maintenance ideas and detail design enhancements.
Navigation: Navman chartplotter, a couple of handheld
GPS as backup.
Steering: Raymarine X5 tillerpilot, Monitor vane,
Simrad TP30 backup pilot.
Communication: Icom SSB, NASA AIS receiver.
Food: I plan to try Heater Meals. Heavy reliance
on Trader Joe's.
Special thanks: To my boat partner Roger Schmidt for allowing me to
take his half of the boat along with mine. To Scott Prusso and Phil
MacFarlane, for the loan of the SSB and Monitor. To my wife Rebecca
Alzofon for her remarkable tolerance. And to my dad Jim Crittenden
for thousands of miles of sailing adventures.