A Deep Dive into Sailing and Senior Living with Mike Manila

A Deep Dive into Sailing and Senior Living with Mike Manila

Sailing Adventures and Life in The Villages with Mike Manila

In this episode of 'Open Forum in The Villages, Florida,' host Mike Roth engages in a lively discussion with Mike Manila about his extensive background in banking operations and his passion for sailing. Mike Manila shares stories about his recent move to Florida, his love for sailing, and the adventures he has experienced, including a memorable trip from Jacksonville to Daytona amid challenging weather conditions. They also delve into the activities of The Villages Sailing Club, sharing information on how it fosters a love for sailing among its members and supports the Lake Eustis Youth Sailing Foundation. The episode is filled with engaging tales, sailing tips, and insights into life in The Villages.

00:00 Welcome to Season Seven
00:34 Meet Mike Manila: From Banking to Sailing
01:11 Life in The Villages
01:52 Sailing Adventures and Challenges
03:04 The Journey from Jacksonville to Daytona
04:11 Sailing Stories and Experiences
10:32 Mike's Sailing Beginnings
12:08 Sailing Adventures and Techniques
12:18 Alzheimer's Tip from Dr. Craig Curtis
13:29 Winning Strategies in Sailboat Racing
14:24 The Villages Sailing Club
17:14 Sailing Challenges and Maintenance
19:02 Sailing Excursions and Adventures
25:42 Supporting Youth Sailing
27:06 Podcast Conclusion and Support

Season 8 Introduction

Transcript

A Deep Dive into Sailing and Senior Living with Mike Manila

[00:00:06] Paula: Welcome to Season seven of Open Forum in The Villages of Florida. In this show, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in The Villages, Florida area.

We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters.

[00:00:29] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Mike Manila. Thanks for joining me, Mike. 

[00:00:38] Mike Manila- AI: Great to be here. 

[00:00:39] Mike Roth: Today we're gonna be talking about sailing.

[00:00:42] Mike Manila- AI: I've got an affinity for it 

[00:00:43] Mike Roth: Mike in a former life was a banking operations and payments systems executive, and he did that for 30 years. Working for major uS financial institutions.

He spent his career leading and advising banks on payment operations and systems.

Mike was originally from Western Pennsylvania. Where in Western Pennsylvania. 

[00:01:05] Mike Manila- AI: Sharon.

[00:01:06] Mike Roth: Mike grew up in Houston.

You don't have much of a Texas accent. 

[00:01:09] Mike Manila- AI: Y'all don't think so? 

[00:01:11] Mike Roth: And recently made the move to Florida.

How long have you been here in the Villages, Mike? 

[00:01:15] Mike Manila- AI: Officially one year. 

[00:01:16] Mike Roth: And he spent 26 years in Dallas. Good fun town. 

[00:01:21] Mike Manila- AI: I prefer to say I was on the Fort Worth side, but Dallas is okay 

[00:01:24] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:01:25] Mike Manila- AI: it's everyone's opinion.

[00:01:26] Mike Roth: I did a lot of work in my career in Dallas Fort Worth driving back and forth. 

I like Dallas better than Houston, to tell you the truth. 

[00:01:34] Mike Manila- AI: yeah, I

hear that quite, there's a big difference between Houston and Dallas, of course.

[00:01:38] Mike Roth: Why did you move to Florida a year ago, Mike? 

[00:01:41] Mike Manila- AI: That's a great question.

My wife retired from her profession in March of 2024, and I retired in August of 2024. We had purchased a sailboat in Jacksonville, Florida.

We decided to quit commuting from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to Jacksonville, Florida.

And just move there.

[00:02:02] Mike Roth: Did you live aboard the Boat? 

[00:02:03] Mike Manila- AI: Well, interesting. we intended to do that. 

But we had a 85 pound dog that would have nothing to do with the boat. 

That was a challenge.

[00:02:12] Mike Roth: Yeah. 

[00:02:12] Mike Manila- AI: So we rented a town home. 

Then we had a shorter commute from the town home to the boat, 

[00:02:18] Mike Roth: And why did you come to The Villages? 

[00:02:20] Mike Manila- AI: Oh that's an even more interesting question. So my wife was retired and was contacted by a recruiter 

[00:02:26] Mike Roth: And 

[00:02:26] Mike Manila- AI: We need someone with your skillset to help us out in a couple cities in Florida long story short the recruiter convinced her to take an interim role that became permanent . She commuted for a few months, and then when we traveled together to The Villages area we decided, hey, this is a nice place. we might like living here, we can always move the boats at some future point.

we decided, The villages offers people of our age a lot of interesting things to do and a great place to live. 

[00:02:54] Mike Roth: What village do you live in? 

[00:02:55] Mike Manila- AI: Pine Ridge. 

[00:02:56] Mike Roth: Where does the sailboat live?

[00:02:58] Mike Manila- AI: It lives in Daytona.

 We moved it from Jacksonville down to Daytona. 

[00:03:03] Mike Roth: How'd that happen? 

[00:03:04] Mike Manila- AI: We decided to move it in June, 

[00:03:06] Mike Roth: Mike, right? 

you sail it yourself? 

[00:03:07] ##: We did. 

[00:03:08] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:03:09] Mike Manila- AI: And what happens in June around here, Mike?

[00:03:11] Mike Roth: Pretty quiet.

Maybe something called the hurricane. 

[00:03:15] Mike Manila- AI: That's the start of the hurricane season. Fortunately, there were none, but obviously here in Florida we have tons of pop-up thunderstorms, that made it quite an adventure. 

[00:03:25] Mike Roth: Oh you

managed to sail through a thunderstorm or two?

[00:03:28] Mike Manila- AI: Yes. Okay. 

So we, 

We transited, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Jacksonville. You're probably familiar with the St. John's river.

[00:03:35] Mike Roth: That's right. 

[00:03:36] ##: Big 

[00:03:36] Mike Manila- AI: Giant river that flows north and out into the Atlantic. From Jacksonville we had to navigate down the St. Johns River.

Through a working, port past a navy base, threw some jetties out to the ocean. 

[00:03:49] Mike Roth: You had a

diesel motor probably. 

[00:03:51] Mike Manila- AI: So we 

[00:03:52] Mike Roth: You didn't actually sail, you motored. 

[00:03:54] Mike Manila- AI: We motor sailed. 

[00:03:55] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:03:56] Mike Manila- AI: That's absolutely correct. We motored. people think, oh, do sailboats have motors?

 Many larger sailboats tend to have diesel motors. So we have an auxiliary motor and we have sail. Smaller boats tend to have outboards. Some don't have any at all. And are stuck with their primary engine. which would be the sails And wind, So do you have some experience sailing Mike?

[00:04:15] Mike Roth: When I lived in San Pedro, I had friends in Long Beach, California who had a sailboat, and they took it out of the Port of Long Beach.

And I would go on that boat with them. I was a terrible crew member. 

[00:04:25] Mike Manila- AI: Oh 

[00:04:25] Mike Roth: Oh wow. But I really enjoyed it getting out there 

 How calm and quiet it was as opposed to a motorboat.

And my son-in-law has a boat. In Centerport Long Island it's a nice

sized sailboat. 

I've gone out with him and my daughter and the family a couple of times on that one, but he doesn't like me to touch anything.

[00:04:45] Mike Manila- AI: So let me tell you about that trip we made from Jacksonville down to Daytona. I invited some lifelong friends of mine. A guy I went to high school with, junior high school, college. He and his wife live out in California, in Sacramento.

He and I had been sailing on and off together for quite a 

[00:05:01] ##: while. 

[00:05:02] Mike Manila- AI: So I thought this might be a fun adventure, great opportunity to spend some time with good friends. my wife and I and my friend Richard and his wife Deirdre got together, made our way up to Jacksonville. Hopped on the boat after doing some provisioning we had a storage shed, up there with some sailing equipment we're in there going do I need this? Do I need that? It's really not that long of a sail. I'm looking around and sure enough, I looked down and I looked at, do you know what a Jerry can is 

[00:05:29] ##: You 

[00:05:29] Mike Roth: that? 

 Yes. From World War I I 

[00:05:30] Mike Manila- AI: yes. Any Smart Cruiser knows to take their spare Jerry cans with them, 

[00:05:36] ##: Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:36] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah this guy wasn't as smart as he thought 

[00:05:38] ##: was. So I 

[00:05:39] Mike Manila- AI: that in the storage saying, I've got plenty of fuel on the boat.

It's a relatively short trip, 

[00:05:45] Mike Roth: and 

it's only Five gallons in the Jerry

can or something. 

[00:05:47] Mike Manila- AI: we calculated the burn rate based on g per hour, so a gallon per hour. 

Miles per gallon. I figured well, yeah. What would five or 10 gallons? I really am not gonna need it.

I ate those words for sure, we're sailing down. Through the channel, through the port and this big dynamic thunderstorm rolls in. I'm just doing my best to keep everybody from, screaming, we're all gonna die. 

And we're not healing over anything like that.

The winds were pretty strong. I had her boat pointed into the wind and we kept it stable. It was all good. Rained really hard. We had some wind things settled down. as we're. Heading back out. We decided, the storm's passed on. I check my watch and think, I don't think we're gonna make it down to St.

Augustine inlet before dark , which was our first place to stop. We had planned to spend the night there. So I decided let's poke into the Intercoastal waterway and see if there's a place where we can anchor overnight.

We dropped the anchor, spent the night there,

And got up and left the next morning. So we get out to the water. We're out in the ocean. Not a lot of breeze. Finally, some breeze that were able to put the sails out. I think we sailed for maybe an hour of the entire trip we had to motor sail almost the entire way down.

I had not anticipated the need to do that. consequently by the time we got down to. St. Augustine. Guess what? There was this other big storm brewing over St. Augustine. we could see it. So we decided to slow down, stay far enough away that it'll just pass by.

Which it did it, it pretty much did not affect us directly. But as we start motoring towards St. Augustine, there's this thing called the St. Augustine Inlet. And that's one of the things about sailing along the Florida coast or much of the east coast for that matter, is what are safe inlets? What are safe inlets to be able to, go from the ocean into a marina or into the ICW?

St. Augustine has a reputation of being a challenging inlet. And sure enough, as we're headed towards it and this wind and is blowing and it's raining, we can see all this, the motor shuts off. 

my wife looks over at me and goes, that's not good.

And I look at her and I say you know what is good? We're a sailboat. We're gonna put some sails back up and we're gonna sail around. We're getting some pretty nice wind off of the edge of the storm. So I said, let's put some sails up. And so we were sailing around and I go while we're sailing we called boat us.

[00:08:17] Mike Roth: all listeners are, but I'm not. 

[00:08:19] Mike Manila- AI: Boat US is a membership thing, like aaa. 

I was able to call boat us up and say, Hey, we need some diesel. 

[00:08:27] Mike Roth: They

drove

out and filled you up. 

[00:08:30] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah. so a vessel eventually.

Came towards us and was bringing a couple of jerry cans with them, 

Of diesel fuel. That of course wouldn't have been a problem had I brought my own. My wife looks at this boat and we have a 42 foot boat. 

[00:08:43] ##: Mind you, 

[00:08:43] Mike Manila- AI: it's 

[00:08:43] Mike Roth: It's a nice size.

42 foot. 

[00:08:45] Mike Manila- AI: 40 decent boats. She's looking at this little power boat coming out. It's about 22 feet. 24 feet. Not big. She goes, that thing's gonna tow us in. I go if it has to, it will. We did some maneuvering. they got close to us, we're under sail. We had to transfer fuel, which is a story in itself.

We eventually got fuel on to the boat into the fuel tank. my wife wore about a gallon of the diesel on her. I said. Let's not fill it all the way up. Let's put enough fuel in there to just see if she'll start. Make sure that's a problem.

Sure enough fired up. Refueled, and made our way into St. Augustine just fine. We got under the bridge of Lions. It has to open up because we have a 63 foot mast. It lifted open for us.

then I hailed the St. Augustine Marina and said, yeah, I'll be coming in. I need to go to the fuel dock.

they asked if i needed fuel? And I said, affirmative. we filled the tank up and the next morning we motored all the way down the ICW to Daytona. We made it down there, it's great that we had a sailboat. and sails. But if you have some Jerry cans, bring those along with you.

[00:09:46] Mike Roth: yeah, that's a good story. You

made me remember a story of going out of Sandusky, Ohio up to some party island in the middle of Lake Erie. one of my clients had a very big sailboat. about six of us were on the boat and My client and I were the only two that didn't get seasick.

' because we had, 12 foot waves that afternoon going out to the island.

But that was a fun trip. 

[00:10:09] Mike Manila- AI: All the trips that you leave and get back safely they tend to be good 

[00:10:13] Mike Roth: ones I never got back on the boat. Oh, you never got back

on? the boat? No, they had a ferry, a high speed ferry between Sandusky and this

party

island. Wow. okay. And my wife and four

the party that got seasick. We took the ferry back. It was much faster. 

[00:10:29] ##: Ah, 

[00:10:29] Mike Manila- AI: Yes. I'm sure.

[00:10:30] Mike Roth: Now when did you first start sailing, Mike? 

[00:10:33] Mike Manila- AI: I started when I was a junior in high school. So that was about 1977, 

[00:10:40] Mike Roth: were you sailing.

In

a lake in the middle of Western Pennsylvania? 

[00:10:44] Mike Manila- AI: Since I grew up in Houston, My first experience sailing was on a Hobie 16.

[00:10:48] Mike Roth: Hmm. 

[00:10:49] Mike Manila- AI: A lot of people start out on Hobie cats. They're fun, 

[00:10:51] ##: fast. 

[00:10:51] Mike Manila- AI: They're wet though, 

[00:10:53] Mike Roth: a lot of slop. 

[00:10:53] Mike Manila- AI: yes. You get you're generally pretty wet, different sailing than on a bigger mono hall.

we started sailing then and some people have a strong affinity forsailing. 

[00:11:03] ##: it. 

[00:11:03] Mike Manila- AI: Others

could take it or leave it, and some would just I'm never ever going sailing in my life. It's too much work. I hate it. I don't know about all this leaning over stuff and.

Getting seasick But somehow it, I caught a bug. And when that bug is in you, I was very driven. And ultimately throughout the years, even in college, I sailed a little bit with my friend Richard on a Hobie eight 

Ultimately I got outta school and started making some money.

I was back in Houston working for a bank and I mentioned to one of my colleagues, I think I'm gonna go to the boat show. 

I wanna see what's available out there.

And 10 minutes later, another colleague comes into my office and says, oh, I hear you like to sail. And I say I do.

And she goes, great. My husband, he's always looking for crew. 

[00:11:48] ##: Mm-hmm. And I 

[00:11:49] Mike Manila- AI: yeah, I'd be happy to crew for him. So that started a new angle for my sailing adventures. It was like, racing sailboats. it was on this Catalina 30. Now people don't think of Catalina 30s as race boats.

But we beat everybody. we raced in what was called handicap racing. Are you familiar with that? 

[00:12:05] Mike Roth: I had a friend that was a commodore at a lake

in Ohio.

they

had races there around, buoys. Yeah. And, that

was real interesting.

Before we

go on, let's take a short break and listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr.

Craig Curtis. 

[00:12:19] Dr. Craig Curtis: Amyloid is the spark, and tau is the fire. We have this spark barking for 20 years without symptoms. Once the spark causes the fire, the breakdown of tau inside the cell, we start to see symptoms. We are actively researching ways to stop tau as well. 

[00:12:36] Mike Roth: Is it possible to regrow new brain cells to replace the ones the tower was killed?

[00:12:42] Dr. Craig Curtis: That's a hot topic. Scientists for the most part, do not believe that we can regenerate any brain cells. There have been a few research papers published in the last four or five years that hint that there might be some brain cell regeneration specifically in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

Which ironically is where Alzheimer's disease starts, but it's really hard to prove that in humans. 

[00:13:07] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismd.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar. 

[00:13:24] Mike Roth: Thank you, Dr. Curtis. So we were talking about sailboat racing. How did you win? 

What was your trick? 

[00:13:31] Mike Manila- AI: We had a really good skipper, And he set his boat up for sailing fast. 

It was a tall rig. And the trick to racing is getting out

staying out ahead. 

That's usually 

It's hard to come from behind. But the real trick is reading the wind

watching the shifts and being in sync with the wind shifts. When you're sailing out on lakes, it's tremendously shifty wind. So when you're out there, it's constantly shifting.

You have to pay a lot attention 

[00:13:58] Mike Roth: To those little strings at the top of the sail. 

[00:14:01] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah, they're indicators. they can be indicators as to, oh, the wind has shifted, right? So you look at those telltales and if you're not paying attention, they're certainly gonna tell you.

When the sails start flapping a little bit, making a little noise, that's generally a really good indicator. 

[00:14:16] ##: Something 

[00:14:16] Mike Roth: you gotta do 

[00:14:17] Mike Manila- AI: something has changed. 

[00:14:18] Mike Roth: So here in The Villages, we have 3,500 clubs. Is there a sailing club that you're a member of?

[00:14:23] Mike Manila- AI: Yes, I am a member of The Villages Sailing Club. it's a really good organization for anyone interested in sailing. you don't have to have any experience or you could have a tremendous amount of experience 

Everyone is welcome.  it's a great social opportunity to learn if you're interested A lot of us are in our fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties. I've seen people of all ages at the sailing club. They have several smaller boats.

They sail mostly on the lakes around here, like lake Eustis Harris or Weir 

[00:14:53] Mike Roth: The club owns boats on those lakes?

[00:14:55] Mike Manila- AI: The club itself doesn't own those boats members do. And then members invite you to go out and go sailing with them. I know there's some other sailing clubs that have

model sailing clubs.

[00:15:06] Mike Roth: Model boats. 

[00:15:07] Mike Manila- AI: These are actual sailboats you get 

[00:15:09] Mike Roth: How big are they? 

[00:15:10] Mike Manila- AI: They range from 18 to 24 feet long. 

[00:15:13] Mike Roth: Okay.

They're in the water all the time. 

[00:15:16] Mike Manila- AI: They're trailered. So the people that own 'em have to store 'em. they have a little challenge here in The Villages, being able to store their sailboat. they're nearby places that they're able to store 'em. 

[00:15:25] Mike Roth: You actually have to launch it when You 

[00:15:27] Mike Manila- AI: So there's a little bit of work involved.

[00:15:29] Mike Roth: get it back up onto the trailer. 

[00:15:30] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah. These are smaller sailboats. Keep in mind they're not 42 footers 

[00:15:34] Mike Roth: I remember my son-in-law had me driving his truck to get the sailboat to the

Long Island sound where it was gonna go in, and there wasn't too much trouble on the road, but when we said, Hey, why don't you just back it down towards the ramp?

That was big trouble. I will never back up a sailboat again. 

[00:15:52] Mike Manila- AI: People do have trouble launching them on the ramp. That's always the biggest challenge. you can definitely tell a newbie because 

[00:15:59] Mike Roth: I was 

[00:16:00] Mike Manila- AI: It takes about 20 times to get it right. But actually the longer the trailer, the easier it is to back. a shorter trailer sometimes it's very difficult to do it, but once you get it down, you get it down, 

[00:16:10] Mike Roth: When does the sailing club meet here in the Villages? 

[00:16:12] Mike Manila- AI: They meet monthly the second Thursday of every 

month. 

And it's at 10:00 AM typically at Lake Miona Recreation center they cover club business, have a presentation and meet socially for lunch, after the meeting

I was supposed to do a presentation in January But that got preempted by a sailing trip to The Bahamas.

 Once a month they find somewhere to meet for happy hour and out, anybody is welcome to come to the happy hour . Of course, anyone welcome to the club. 

[00:16:38] Mike Roth: How many members does this club have? 

[00:16:40] Mike Manila- AI: I don't have the current numbers, but I think it's about 120, 130 members.

[00:16:45] Mike Roth: And how many show up at a monthly meeting?

[00:16:46] Mike Manila- AI: About 20 and sometimes as high as 40 or 50. it just varies as to who's here. here in The Villages you have snowbirds that come down. they're here during the winter, early spring, and then they go home for the summer.

people don't wanna be down here. 

[00:16:59] Mike Roth: Now your boat, do you keep it in the water or in a dry dock? 

[00:17:03] Mike Manila- AI: It's in the water.

It's in the marina. 

[00:17:05] Mike Roth: Okay. So I remember when my son-in-law got his boat, maybe a year later, he dragged me to the, boating store. Where he bought supplies he buys a wetsuit and an aqua lung To clean the barnacles off the bottom of the boat. I said. Cliff, are you really gonna clean it yourself.

He says, yeah, it's gonna be fun. 

[00:17:23] Mike Manila- AI: Okay I'm a paddy master instructor, scuba instructor.

I haven't taught in a while, and I love scuba diving, but I don't plan to clean the bottom of my boat in the marina, Nothing against the water here, there's things in the water called 

[00:17:37] ##: alligators. 

[00:17:37] Mike Manila- AI: I prefer not to be in the water with 

[00:17:39] Mike Roth: Yeah, I understand. But Long Island sound is different than they don't have alligators. there. 

[00:17:44] Mike Manila- AI: So I pay a scuba diver to get in the water and clean the barnacles off the bottom of 

[00:17:49] Mike Roth: That's a good thing to do.

How often do you actually sail on your boat? 

[00:17:53] Mike Manila- AI: Not often enough. 

[00:17:55] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:17:55] Mike Manila- AI: We don't get to use it as frequently as we'd like, and part of the reason is because while I am no longer working. My wife is, still working at that interim job that turned into a permanent job.

She liked it so much. She gave up retirement. can you imagine that? So we don't get to go, but we're gonna go this weekend. If the weather's pleasant, I don't know how windy it will be. 

[00:18:17] Mike Roth: Temperature's supposed to be good. 

[00:18:19] Mike Manila- AI: The temperature will be right, but wind weather's always the determining factor, 

[00:18:23] Mike Roth: Now why didn't you decide to move your sailboat up to Lake Harris? Where's the

big chain of lakes. 

[00:18:31] Mike Manila- AI: I've done a lot of lake sailing. for a 42 foot boat we could get around. It would be okay, but we would get bored with that. And that's why we don't do lake sailing.

Our whole goal for coming to Florida and having this 42 foot boat, was to, sail

off the coast

[00:18:47] Mike Roth: So tell our listeners about some of your sailing adventures in Florida. 

[00:18:51] Mike Manila- AI: We talked about one of 'em and that was the move from Jacksonville down to Daytona.

I went with the sailing club, here's a kind of a fun thing. If you just want to go somewhere and go sailing on a boat, they have excursions that they do. We recently went over to St. Pete and there were four or five of us from the sailing club. We chartered a sailboat. They had a captain on it,

[00:19:11] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:19:12] Mike Manila- AI: And we went out for the day and enjoyed ourselves. It was a wonderful day out on the water. if you're familiar with Tampa, 

[00:19:18] ##: Pete. 

[00:19:18] Mike Roth: Beautiful place. 

[00:19:19] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah. So we got out there and enjoyed ourselves with that.

And then recently I went off to The Bahamas. I helped a former boater from the marina we were both at in Jacksonville. he needed some help moving his 40 foot catermanran over to The Bahamas. And I thought, wow, 

[00:19:37] Mike Roth: Big catamaran, but it's a big ocean between here and there.

[00:19:40] Mike Manila- AI: People have sailed around the world in smaller vessels so yes, it can be scary, but a big portion of it was picking a weather window that made sense. weather is so important when you're sailing, particularly when you have to cross the Gulf Stream.

I'm sure you're familiar with the Gulf Stream. 

[00:19:56] Mike Roth: Sure. 

[00:19:57] Mike Manila- AI: Think of this big river running through the ocean along the coast of the 

[00:20:01] ##: United States. 

[00:20:03] Mike Manila- AI: And it's moving it four plus knots pretty steadily. if wind is coming out of the north and the current, the Gulf Stream in this case is moving north, that could produce pretty big waves.

So that 12 foot wave you were talking about could be a 40 foot 

[00:20:18] Mike Roth: That's unpleasant. 

[00:20:19] Mike Manila- AI: That would be very unpleasant. one wants to go when there's 40 foot waves out there particularly on a 40 foot boat.

even if you were on a 600 foot boat, I doubt that you'd want to be in 40 foot waves, to be quite honest.

[00:20:31] Mike Roth: And a catamaran would be an open cabin. 

[00:20:34] Mike Manila- AI: No. It had a fly bridge. catamarans have two hulls and those were the sleeping quarters it has a salon in the middle of the deck.

This particular boat a leopard 40. has a fly bridge situated above the deck

[00:20:47] Mike Roth: Okay. So that's much bigger than The catamarans I

was on out in Hawaii 

[00:20:51] Mike Manila- AI: I don't know. 

[00:20:52] Mike Roth: I remember getting wet on 'em and sitting on A canvas mat in between the two hulls.

[00:20:56] Mike Manila- AI: So it did have, that's called a trampoline by the way. those are designed to get you drunk, have a drink and get out there and get splashed. his boat did have a trampoline on it, but think of it as a floating condo.

[00:21:08] Mike Roth: that's okay. Big enough to be that.

[00:21:10] Mike Manila- AI: Oh yeah, definitely washer dryer on there, kitchen, sink stove, 

[00:21:14] Mike Roth: So you

took this boat. from

Florida to The Bahamas? 

[00:21:18] Mike Manila- AI: Yes. 

[00:21:19] Mike Roth: How long did it take? 

[00:21:20] Mike Manila- AI: We left around noon on Thursday, and got there around noon on Sunday. 

[00:21:25] Mike Roth: Yeah. 

[00:21:26] Mike Manila- AI: And, the strategy is staying far enough offshore, but not so far offshore that you get into the Gulf Stream. 'cause going against the current is a challenge.

And then going far enough south to then cut across the Gulf Stream then leverage the Gulf Stream to help push you towards your goal. This gentleman who was a seasoned skipper, a former merchant Marine. 

[00:21:48] Mike Roth: Now You're a seasoned skipper 

[00:21:49] Mike Manila- AI: Yes. I'm not a US Coast Guard captain, but I'm a season skipper.

My primary background has been racing. 

So there's a whole different dynamic between racing and cruising. 

[00:22:00] Mike Roth: We had another sailor on the show named Alex Santoriellio, who puts on a lot of The shows at the Savanna Center, the KC Productions, and he's a licensed captain, and he delivers sailboats.

[00:22:13] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah. there are people who don't want to move their boats around themselves, 

hire a licensed captain to do it In my spare time, I am working on becoming a licensed captain I like to continually learn, It's another piece of, the equation in terms of the sailing resume I've raced in some really wonderful places, like down at Key West and up on Lake Michigan I don't know that you ever lose the desire to race. the old saying is if there's two boats out there. You're always racing. there's, the dynamic is quite different. Racing, it's a skillset where you're at the top of the skillset in terms of sailing, grabbing this line or that, or doing this, or knowing when to attack or 

[00:22:51] ##: the turn. 

[00:22:52] Mike Manila- AI: When to grind on that winch, handle or whatever, all those things. And crew is such an important component of it. people think, it's that person who's, got their hand on the tiller or their hand on the wheel, that they're doing everything, The crew's doing all the hard work and if you've got the luxury of driving the boat. whenever we won races, which we won a few I basically did just the driving and made sure that the boat went fast, everybody else went around me. They kept their eye on everything else.

Where's the win? Where's the competition? 

[00:23:24] Mike Roth: So does your boat have electric winches for the sails? 

[00:23:27] Mike Manila- AI: Oh, what a great question. it doesn't have an electric winch, so we do have to grind. 

[00:23:33] Mike Roth: Part of the front of sailing. 

[00:23:34] Mike Manila- AI: I'm still relatively young. 64, going on 65 here. I still have a little bit of upper body strength, but the truth of the matter is I think an electric winch would certainly be in the future. 

[00:23:46] Mike Roth: 1 of my buddies had a boat with an electric winch and he says to me

Mike, I got that so. You don't have to touch the handle, and the handle

won't fall

overboard.

[00:23:55] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah. They do the winch handles do go overboard. It's a matter of, there's an old saying, one hand for the boat and one hand for yourself. 

You always have to be hanging on to something right. 

[00:24:05] Mike Roth: Make sure that sails not coming over the top of you and your head is too high. 

[00:24:08] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah there's a reason why they call it the boom, right?

[00:24:12] Mike Roth: Yes, in your future, you see yourself becoming a captain. 

And you're gonna continue selling for a while? 

[00:24:17] Mike Manila- AI: That's correct. ultimately when my wife does decide to really retire, 

 she's a few years younger than I am.

Our goal is to sell over to The Bahamas hopefully sail up and down the East coast explore some of the. Wonderful places along the East coast . While I have a desire to do some ocean crossings, my wife doesn't. 

Maybe find some like-minded people to get out and go cruising and sailing.

if I'm fortunate enough to do ocean crossing somewhere in my future, I'd love to do that.

Quite often what happens is people like myself, we wait till we're, later on in life and make these decisions about having these incredible life experiences. And I can't tell you the exhilaration you might feel when you're out in the ocean. As I recently had this opportunity and the night stars are out, it's beautiful.

You see the moon rise. I had a night watch on that trip over to The Bahamas and it was pitch dark until the moon came up and that was beautiful. And then seeing the stars you get to see some incredible effervescent sea life dolphins. It's really quite an experience.

I think we wait too late in life to do those things. if you can do it sooner rather than later.

Mike, one of the things I didn't talk to you about today was regarding The Villages Sailing Club. I wanted to tell you a little bit about some of the things that we do there we like to help the Lake Eustis Youth Sailing Foundation.

It's an organization on Lake Eustis for young kids to learn how to sail. 

[00:25:45] Mike Roth: Great idea. 

[00:25:46] Mike Manila- AI: Yeah we need to support those future sailors and develop new sailors Every year The Villages Sailing Club tries to raise some money for them. So I would encourage anybody who's interested to check out The Villages Sailing Club website, and make a donation

[00:26:02] Mike Roth: What's the website? 

[00:26:04] Mike Manila- AI: The website is www SailTheVillages. org. Check out the website. But we'd certainly like to see some help from The Villages in helping out these kids.

It's dedicated to teaching young people the lifelong sport of sailing. We wanna stress, safety, good sportsmanship, honesty, loyalty, courage, respect for authority and respect for the environment and the community. each year, The Villages Sailing Club raises funds to support the Lake The Youth Sailing Foundation to pass, our love of sailing on to the next generation.

Our volunteers also donate their time. To help run youth sailing Regas. It's Just something we like to do as part of the club and helping the community.

[00:26:47] Mike Roth: Thanks Mike.

Great.

Thanks for joining us today, Mike. 

[00:26:50] Mike Manila- AI: Thank you.

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