About
The blog:
This blog will help me keep track of all the tasks, both huge and small, that I have to complete for the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race, AKA, the transpac. After the race, I’ll use it to post race schedules, cruise-out photos, maintenence logs, and pictures of my cat. Everyone can stop reading then.
What about the title “The log of a wannabe ocean racer and his boat”? I almost called this blog “Chasing Ellen Macarthur” but that had kind of a stalker feel. Plus I’d have to explain the title to Heather. At any rate, back when I was in college in the early 90s (at the time, a wannabe climber) I always felt that the ultimate in on-the-edge living-life-to-the-fullest were the shorthanded ocean racers (mostly french) like Isabelle Autissier, Christophe Auguin, Philippe Jeantot, and American bad-ass underdog Mike Plant (RIP).
At any rate, compared to people like Ellen and Isabelle and Paul Cayard, we are all wannabees. But it gives us the right perspective. Out there somewhere, someone is going twice as fast and hard as you, and having a blast. Garth and I have a joke, which we came up with during the doublehanded Farrallones race: We are in the ocean, and there is a race going on all around us, so we must be ocean racers. We got 5th.
The boat:
Shanti is a 1990 Olson 911S, designed by Carl Shumacher and manufactured by Ericson.
The skipper
