Sam Burns
Southernaire

Catalina 309

PCR: 187
Homeport: Alameda, CA
Boat:  #129

Southernaire

My sailing life started in 1988 when a cousin sold me his boat to pay for some dental work. A couple years later found me living on the boat at Club Nautico in Cartagena, Colombia, staring at a Samsonite briefcase. The briefcase filled itself with brochures, samples, invoices, and a peso or two during the '90s as business got serious, the boat faded away, my Colombian partner became wife, and life was good. Then on January 25, 1999, a 6.9 earthquake destroyed a large part of the city of Armenia and the house on the coffee plantation where we lived. And we had a bun in the oven.

Fast forward to today: wife Alicia works at Target, daughter Andrea works at the 4th grade, and I have an eight-week sabbatical coming up from the Silicon Valley chip foundry where I have worked for a decade. Impressed by a Catalina 28 in the Tradewinds Sailing Club fleet in Richmond, we bought Southernaire from Robert and Joan Walker of Fremont, who are going to try lakeside living in Copperopolis. Call me a 'binge sailor' if you like, but I see the TransPac, sabbatical, and new boat as an alignment of the stars.

Southernaire

Navigation: Raymarine chartplotter, laptop, WEFAX

Steering : Raymarine autopilot, self-made transom-hung emergency rudder equipped w/tiller autopilot

Communication: ICOM700 SSB / Pactor II Modem / AIS / SPOT

Food : Colombian supremo coffee, Bumblebee tuna, black beans, lentils, Idaho potatoes + pressure cooker

Special Thanks: To the race committee volunteers, race seminar presenters, to the other SSS participants, and to the staff at Tradewinds Sailing Club for their tireless efforts in promoting sailing.