The Rule 69 Podcast, #3

If you're like me, and let's hope that you aren't, I get boat fever far too frequently. Here I talk about my latest obsession?

Will I make it a reality? Listen and find out!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Yeah, there we go. Scott Tempesta here with you. Rule69.com is the website. Go there. I implore you to go to rules69.com. It's a third podcast that I've done, which is at an incredibly lazy pace. Considering how on fire I was, and still am in terms of content on the front page, um, you know, it's getting there. Takes a while to build an audience, takes a while to get people interested. Um, you know, we are our own flavor. We do what we want. We don't have corporate overlord buttholes telling us what to do. I'm glad to be independent again. I wasn't for a while, and now I am. And so, yeah, we make we do the content that we think is really compelling. We try to hit three things on the on the website. Number one, it needs to be interesting on some level, whether it's news, a breaking story, a bitchin' video, a great picture, a really good article. Like there has to be some interest. And so, you know, we try to get it spread around a bit. Obviously, our focus is racing, but we're not exclusively racing. Um, in fact, what I'm gonna talk about today is not that at all. It's not racing. Um, and so anyway, I wanted to just finish up. So it needs to be interesting, right? It needs to be entertaining. Like, there's a lot of places you can go with your eyeballs on online, a lot of places, and so I want our product to be that. Just it just needs to be entertaining. You've got to you've got to like, oh, that's interesting, or oh, sure, I'm gonna read this article. This is pretty good. Um, and or I'm gonna listen to this podcast. It's crazy good. So that's what we're doing on the website. Uh, I we're off to a good start. We're only gonna get bigger and badder, you know, as in I'm bad, not it's bad. Uh and it's fun, and I'm enjoying it. It's uh it's a you know a second chance uh to do something that I want to do the way I want to do it. I hope you guys like it. I appreciate it. So, those who don't know me, um I've had a bunch of boats over the years. I mean, I think I did the math. Uh 10 boats in 18 years. I think that's right. It includes two Flying Tiger tens. Don't ask, please don't ask why. Other than I absolutely love the boat. And that was my first boat that I bought, Anarchy 1. And then it was a Melgus 32, which I loved. Hard not to love. Santa Cruz 33 was a fail. God damn it, they are awful things. I forgot, you know. I only have memories of when I was a teenager sailing on a couple of them uh up in the Oxnard Ventura area. And back then they were really something. Well, fast forward 9,000 years, and they're really not something, they're something awful, is what they are. Uh, I like the boat. I something about the looks I like, and so I did that. Uh okay, that didn't work. Then I bought my second flying tiger. I called it A4. Um, and that was the most fun I think I've ever had. Uh, the greatest people with me, and we just won a lot, and it was really, really fun. Then I went old school and I bought an Ericsson 35 Mark II that was really nice, and I made it nicer. And we really did love that boat. We raced it a lot, we won a fair bit. We had a hard time beating Benny Mitchell in his Ericsson 35 uh Mark II, to no surprise, really. I mean, the boat was stacked with really good sailors, pros. Jesus Christ. You know, and we had good people too, but they were just at a better job. And the truth is they were faster upwind, and we were faster downwind. And I know how that works. If you get around the weather mark first, pretty hard to get you downwind. I can close the gap, but getting by is tough. And so that was a that was problematic for us. But we loved the boat. We loved the size of the cockpit and down below, and you know, partied and entertained and sleepovers on the boat. God damn, that was a fun boat, but it really is an awful sailing boat, terrible. Oh my god. And I we even have the new updated rudder, um, and it didn't seem to matter at all. The boat won't track, uh, it's tough to back down. It's too bad because it's one of the best looking boats ever. And certainly in its time, it was amazing. Boat called Aquarius was just the one that just won virtually everything. Um, and so then I bought a uh, so that'd be Anarchy 5. Then I bought a highly modified Hobie 33. I mean radically modified, like bitchin'. And that was Anarchy 6. Okay, whatever. It was fun, but it was very limited boat, as Hobies are, even modified. The one thing that they should have done on this boat that they didn't, they they replaced everything except the keel. And anybody who knows anything about Hobie 33s, Jesus Christ, the foils are terrible. Um, and if you're gonna go through all that, you should replace the keel. But they didn't, and I like the boat, fast down, wind, and a breeze, as Hobies are, but it was limited. You know, this boat had a tall rig, but it only had a jib, it didn't have overlapping Genoas, and that was an issue uh in light air. And eh, okay. So then I bought a J105 um that I called Black Flag, and that our boat was nice and it was fast, and I put a lot of money into it and had some crew issues, and um, yeah, that that blew up. Uh then I had a super incredible, bizarre lark. I found this beater Hobie 33 sitting in a meth meth lab/slash boat yard in Oceanside. And it was a beater, but the guy that I bought it from had done a lot of work already. Um, and so I bought it. And because I thought, well, hell, Hobie 33 is rate great in PHRF. Uh, mine's gonna be set up right, tuned right. I got really good sales on it, I got decent sailors. I was having a hard time getting a crew at that point, maybe because I was 90 years old. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. Duh. Um, and that also had um crew problems. Yeah. So that blew up. And uh, I haven't done anything. I sold that thing about a year ago, maybe. Yeah, I haven't done anything, and because I didn't want to, you know, it just the sale, my sailing had ended on a relatively sour note. Thanks. Thanks, female friend. And um, so yeah, I bailed and haven't done anything, you know, and I've been concentrating on the the new website, and you know, I've got another little side hustle, but um I am stumbling across something that's got my attention and it it probably shouldn't. So I'm an old school, emphasis on old, de-emphasis on school, old school West Coast sailor. And I was around during the heyday of the Southern California production boats, right? Cal, Erickson, Islander, Columbia, Shock. There's probably one or two, I'm forgetting, but those were the main. Did I say Ranger? I didn't say Ranger, I should have. Um so many good boats were built by notably, I think Ranger. The 26 and the 33 were insanely good, Gary Mull boats. The 37, okay. I mean, it had its time in the sun, hasn't aged particularly well. I think um Cal made great boats. Oh my god, all those Bill Lapworth designs. And and my family had one. We had a Cal 29, and it was a fun boat. This is back in the Morph days, M O R F. Uh, and then that changed into MRC later on, and it was a whole new breed of Morsi boats. Sadly, there's no Morrissey boats anywhere anymore. I mean, there are boats, but nobody races Morsi as a as a fleet, right? As a class that's gone. Um, and I love that boat. So I was just, I forget where I was, but I came across, oh, somebody sent me a picture of a boat from like a drone shot. I'm like, oh, what is that? This this thing has been refurbished. I would say it's almost completely done, but um but not nice, nice police coming at me. Um most of the hard work has been done on this boat. And when I saw more pictures, I'm like, oh my goodness, what is it? It is a shock endeavor 26. No, you haven't heard of it. And if you have, you're freakish like me. It they made 56 of them. Not very many. Um certainly not compared to the the numbers that the the other brands, you know, Cal and Ericsson and Ranger were selling. I mean, just huge numbers, especially Cal, I think. Cal had so many different size boats, you know, from the 20, you know, to the 48 and everything in between. Um, so I'm like, what the heck? Wow, I didn't even know about this boat. And I'm an old school guy, and I can identify somebody goes, oh, Scott, what's that boat? It just takes me a few seconds to go, oh yeah, that's a I under 30 Mark II, probably a short rig. They only made a few tall rigs. Um, you know, I can do that. And uh I did not, I must admit, I've probably heard of this, but because there weren't any where I grew up sailing, uh, because they, you know, just produce so few, I didn't know what it was. Well, it's a really cool old school, it's a Bill Lapworth design, which I find attractive. And you can definitely see in the hole lines on this thing that it is. It's a semi-full keel with a rudder attached to the back of the keel. I mean, that's not ideal, but listen, we're talking 1966, okay? Um, it probably set the trend in cockpit size. Um, I think most of uh Bill Lauper's boats had pretty good size cockpits. Cal 20 is a good example. Um, this boat has a huge cockpit, and it's something that's something I really love, especially on you know small-ish boats. Because where do you spend your time? You're not down below. You're not. You're out, you're sitting uh on the deck, and mostly if it's at the dock or certainly sailing. And this thing's got room for six people easily, no trouble whatsoever. So I love that. It's a cute little uh cuddy cabin, I guess you'd call that, maybe a little bit more than a cuddy, but it's definitely a smallish cabin, you know, relatively forward on the boat, so that you can squeeze in all this cockpit space. Um, it's a low-profile cabin. It's a really nice looking boat. And this guy has redone this boat incredibly. I mean, it's beautiful inside, all new woodwork, you know, nice vinyl liner. Like he's really cushions, V Bray, he's really done a lot of work on the boat. And it looks really good. I haven't seen it, but I've certainly seen videos and pictures, and it looks great. I mean, the guy's done a fabulous job on the refurb. And, you know, because I'm connected to the older school stuff, you know, just through my history, and because I have, you know, a soft spot for a lot of these boats. I just do. I race them, I race against them. Um, who can forget when Ericsson came out with the flush deck 46? Like, oh my god, a production 46-foot race boat. Like that Bruce King, another great designer, mostly unheralded, but great, fabulous boats, fabulous boats. Um, and I mean that boat was just like mind-blowing. Like, how really they built something that big and it was powerful, and in the day, it was a rocket. So, you know, my affinity for all of those brands it holds true to this day. So I saw this thing, and I'd been contemplating, I really wasn't planning on do anything until next year, and I still may not, but my next boat, whatever it is, is not going to be a race boat. This will be the first time ever, really, ever. Um, I'm not doing at least a dual purpose boat, right? The Ericsson 35 was a dual purpose boat, Santa Cruz 33, kind of, but you know, um, everything else was race. And so the next boat that I do, I don't think I don't want to because I don't want to get sucked up into that loop, the vacuum of racing, you know, constantly getting crew, you know, and it's crews hard to get, you know, I'm not, I'm not the person that I was in a number of ways. But just in terms of like, oh yeah, Tempesta is out there winning everything, you know, on whatever boat he has. And so if he's gonna do no new boat, you know, a lot of the people just went with me from boat to boat to boat. But, you know, people go off in different directions when you're not doing much. And so I just don't want to get in that again. I it was very frustrating, you know, for a guy who's always had a good crew and you know, pulling off maneuvers and we're really slick and sailing the boat, you know, pretty much to its maximum potential all the time. It was horrifying in the last boat I had because we weren't. I mean, every now and then we get it hooked up and it was pretty impressive, but just some shitty sailors and just oh god, you know, I don't want to do that again. So I want to get something that's going to be a day sailor with a nod towards if I want to go do a race or two, the boat will do it. And my first thought was a J100. Um, good-looking boats, big cockpits. Um there's, you know, you can overnight on the boat if you want to. You can. And you can also race it. But it's easy to sail. You know, that's the other thing. I want something that I can shorthand, um, whether it's just me, probably be mostly me. Nobody wants to sail with me anymore. Or, you know, hopefully a girl or friends, right? And just, you know, just the joy of day sailing is something that I had forgotten about literally for decades, until I had a small partnership on a Harbor 20. And that opened my eyes. I had a girlfriend who didn't really know how to sail, and we used the Harbor 20 to teach her, you know, how to do it, how to do it right. And um a great we spent hours and hours just in La Playa and sailing the harbor and going out to Point Loma in San Diego. Just loved the thing. And I liked that it was easy to sail. I like that you could sail it by yourself or with one other person, or with the big cockpit, you know, you could have four or five people. It wasn't six even. Uh, it was awesome in that regard. So that's really stuck to mind in terms of you know what I want to do. I want a boat that's going to be easy to sail. And if it's more than likely gonna have to have lazy jacks, I'm not gonna do one of those bagged mainsails, you know, where the sail's up and then it's got like the bag or the you know folding bag that's kind of flopping there. I think that's so lame. I just I can't stand that. So lazy jacks, full battons, and uh, you know, mainsail virtually folds itself on the way down, piece of cake. Uh, I don't want overlapping headsails, no way at all. So it needs to have be a boat that can sail nicely with a jib. And looking at the rig on this uh Shock 26, you know, it's it's funny. It's a fractional rig uh with jumper struts up there. And I don't really know why they did a fractional rig, and I haven't been able to determine if the spreaders are swept back. I I kind of doubt that they are, but I think they must be because it's got the jumper struts, and uh I'm looking, I look, I can't tell exactly, but it looks to me like there's not really a centerline chain plate. It looks to me like the main chain plate is aft, and then there's a forward chain plate. And I I'm trying to get clarification on that. I would like to know. Um, the boat just sails with a jib, but I think this is a boat that's going to require, you know, a pretty large roach mainsail for sure. I'll probably have to have a flicker up at the top because it's a standard backstay arrangement. It's a deck step mast. And um, and I you know, I want I'm gonna be sailing the boat in San Diego, right? So it's gotta have power, you know. So build a big main and um and then probably could make the jib a lot bigger than what it is. I'm thinking I don't think it's a maximum hoist, you know, maximum girth jib, which is what I would want to do, and especially if it's got sweatback spreaders, but I don't again, I don't know. Um I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I want the boat to be a decent sailing thing. Now I know these you know semi-full keel attached rudder boats, you know, they're not known, you know, for their deafness, let's just say that. I I don't think their maneuverability is is what it could be, uh, and certainly is in some of the modern boats. I mean, of course, I doubt this thing spins on a dime, but you know, what do I need to spin on a dime for? If I do a race, which it might be a classic race, if because the boat's got a uh glass wood deck, I don't know if that counts. The whole solid fiberglass, and it's all been redone. You know, it's just the thing is it looks fabulous, really looks good. And if you're gonna buy an older boat, you you don't want to, at least I don't want to buy a beater, because first of all, I don't have the time, I don't have the skill set, and I don't have the patience to go through a boat like this and redo everything. And this boat has had everything done. I mean, the hole's been LP'd, it's got a micron bottom on it, uh, it's been fared, the deck is really nice, all new paint everywhere, really looks fabulous. So if a boat like this is to be had, which is really something I'm contemplating, this would be how you would, this is the way you do it. Now, it's always a little risky buying a boat you've never sailed on. It's not like you can go hop on your friend's shock 1966 shock 26 endeavor, um, because there ain't any, certainly not around here. So it's a little bit of a risk, and I guess I'm willing to take that risk um, you know, to have a cool little thing that I like. It doesn't matter if you like it, it doesn't matter at all. Uh, some people will really appreciate it, they'll look at it and won't know what it is. Um, some people will be curious, some people couldn't give less of a fuck. So but that's fine. I I'm not, it's not look at me. Um, I'm going back in time a little bit. And you know, my parents had a Yankee Dolphin 24 Sparkman Stevens design, keel center board. Great boat. I mean a fucking great boat. So much fun. I grew up, I grew up sailing on it. I learned how to sail on it uh with my folks, and just loved the boat. And I suspect this boat's gonna be much like that. Uh weighs about 3,000 pounds, which I think is relatively good. 50% balance ratio, 1,500 pounds in the keel. Okay. I mean, sure. So I think the boat was designed to race a bit, and uh just looking at the hull out of the water, it's smooth and it's nice, and just it looks like a proper boat should from you know an era that is bygone. But that's okay. I mean, again, not not going racing. I mean, I'll put a main, if I did, I'd put a main a jib on the boat, um, and then I'd build an ASO of some sort. I don't know exactly how. I'm not putting a bow sprit on the goddamn thing. Forget that. If anything, we'll bolt a block to the front, very front, and that's that. Seriously. Uh, but I think that's kind of required, you know, especially for light air sailing, especially for all the reaching, you know, that we do around here in San Diego Bay. And, you know, it needs to be easy. I gotta be able to set it, you know, with uh with a a friend who doesn't know how to sail um or know very, very little about it. I need to be able to do that, you know, and of course that. Implies an autopilot, of course, of course. Um, and a couple of other things, you know, just to bring some of the modern stuff onto a boat like this. It's a little, you know, it's it's not quite a resto mod, you know, in car terms, it's not that. But, you know, it's a resto classic, you know, a plastic fantastic classic. And um I think I think it's a I think it's cool. So I know, I know what I always do. I look at something and I go, oh my god, that would be so great to own. And then I eat it like a madman. I spend, you know, hours online trying to find out, find out everything I can. Pictures of videos, blah, blah, blah, blah, everything I can. And um I've only gotten wrong really once. I I the Santa Cruz 33 was a misstep for sure. And um, I liked the boat, but I just, oh, it was unrewarding to sail. Really un thanks, D Smith, who designed it. Chump. Um, with Bill Lee. Um, yeah, it was supposed to be an IOR boat, a ULDB IOR boat. Yeah, yeah, that works well. That's a great concept. And dummy me bought it. Um, but we fixed it up, made it really nice, and had a good time with it, you know, but it just wasn't satisfying. And if I get a boat that I that is inherently unsatisfying, that is, you know, it just doesn't go like a modern boat. Um, as long as that's baked into the equation, you know, um, and understood by me that, okay, the thing probably does go really well for what it is. In fact, I suspect it's much faster than people would think that it is. Um, and so, you know, that's I like that. I don't want to, you know, I don't want some piggy thing that's not gonna go. Forget that. And so I'm a little concerned, you know, sail area, rig height, all that kind of stuff. It looks okay. I saw a drawing, line drawing of the rig, and it doesn't look bad. Um, but like I said, I would put a big full girth main on it, you know, as much as I possibly could. Seriously. I think you just have to. And then I would also then go ahead and um, you know, maximize the jib, like I said. Would I put it on a furler? Maybe. Um, you know, I don't really know. Uh, I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. I've got to determine A, if I want to do this. Uh, B, if uh I'm going to be enthused about it. And I and I always start off super enthused. Um, and then C, you know, it's just a matter of, well, is this the direction I want to go, or should I wait until the first of the year um and then get something, you know, more modern. Not really sure about that, but I gotta say right now, this is I I would I would not be unopposed to buying this. In fact, I think I'm gonna drop an offer in on the guy, not not take it right away because I'm not ready for it at all. But I I would like to secure this boat because it really looks fun. It just because all the work's been done. And I say that only just in terms of glasswork, fairing, paint. You know, that's all been done. Nothing's been done to the rig, you know, nothing's been done to the rigging. Uh, so you know, it would be fun to modernize the boat that way, you know, without going absolutely crazy on money. Why would you do that? But, you know, if it could be a nice sailing boat that I can easily single or double hand, um, I think I would do it. I really I really do. So, you know, everybody's got their thing, but I think that older guys like me, who grew up in a certain area, right? That it was the Mecca of production boats, Southern California, period, end of story. Like all Orange County, you know. Um, so you know that that touches a nerve for me. And especially this. This is not me buying a Cal 29, right? This is not me buying a Ranger 26, although that's appealing too, because you could actually race it and win uh with that boat. Although there's no PHRF here in San Diego, thanks to a certain sailing club, Cortez Racing Association. They've killed PHRF and replaced it with ORC, and people aren't happy with it, but they did it anyway. I mean, it's just I told them not to. I see, I said you should do both. Offer ORC for those who want to do it, and offer PHRF for those who want to be there. Nope. Nope. And I think the numbers are down. I think the beer can series is way off. Um, and I'm not surprised. So, you know, that's a problem. I want to raise PHRF. I doubt my shock 26 endeavor would be an ORC killer. I although, wouldn't it be hilarious if it was? That would be funny. If I could win double handed um in ORC with this boat, that would be funny. But that's not the intention. Um, it's not. So anyway, that's kind of what I'm thinking, and it's very much me, me, me, I, I, I. I know that. But, you know, I'm I guess you never you never think of you never quit thinking about boats until you can't think no mo. You know what I'm saying? So I'm always thinking, but I've been pretty cool about it because right now I don't really see anything that I like. Sure, I stuff that I like. It's a matter of, you know, affordability, it's it's a matter of practicality, usability, all that sort of stuff. And the bigger the boat, you know, more problems. And so I don't want those problems. I just I want no problems, virtually none. So this thing, it's a solid boat. I know it is, it's amazingly fair. Um, it's cool. So that's something I might I might do. And who knows? The next podcast, I might be introducing the boat. So uh I just don't know if that's gonna be the case. I really don't. But listen, I want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for reading the website, rules69.com. And if you got any comments about this boat, send me an email. Editor at R U L E, the numbers six nine dot com. For Rule Sixty Nine, I'm Scott Tempesta.