Who is Lance?

The simple:

Sailor, shipwright, photographer, philosopher,  artist, ………….(not necessarily in that order)

The verbose:

I was sailing by the time I was 5 on dad’s 10′ super sabot in Newport Beach CA.  The family always had a sailboat, first a beautiful 25′ folkboat, finished bright except for the cabintop and teak decks.  The 4 of us and 2 standard poodles would cruise for up to a week on this boat!  Next was one of the first Hobie 14s, the one without a jib where I learned to sail backwards!  Then it was a 24′ Bluenose daysailer sloop that my brother Chris and I would take out and see how far we could knock it down and how cold and wet we could get.

Then it got serious and we finally bought the "ultimate" yacht, the 1948, 49′ S&S/Nevins Yawl "Pacifica". This was truly a dream come true but required the entire family to make it work.  The folks paid the bills, Chris started a Marine Chandlery  "Downwind Marine" to get parts and materials at a discount, and I  worked almost fulltime restoring the boat.  We got involved in the Ancient Mariners Sailing Society (AMSS) where Chris was Commodore and I was on the board of directors and did their public relations, culminating with over 100 classic wooden boats racing on San Diego Bay and Pacifica winning!  Thru the AMSS we were successful both racing and showing the boat.  People would comment how rare it was for the same boat to win the show and then go out and win the race, but it showed how much dedication we all put into the effort.  We raced to Hawaii with the AMSS twice, winning once, and learned advanced cruising skills in California’s Channel Islands in the off season.

Another dream came true when the Dana Point Nautical Heritage Museum dedcided to build an authentic replica ship (tall ship) in our back yard (San Diego Bay).  There was no way we were not going to be involved in building the 98 foot  "Californian" and so Chris became the supplier of materials thru Downwind Marine and I became one of the shipwrights while mom and dad got involved socially with fundraising.  This was a truly amazing 2 year project, worthy of further comment (if I had the time) and I still give a slide presentation of the entire building process.  I was then one of the mates and alternate "engineer" for the shakedown cruise culminating with my almost puking on L.A. mayor Bradley on live TV and watching the fireworks from the foretopmast of the replica ship "Bounty".

But things were about to change.  I was now getting offers to crew on boats on far-away seas.  First it was a delivery of a new charter boat from Conneticut to Antigua in the Carribean, then to assist delivery of a 90′ 3-masted schooner from Callao, Peru to Papeete, Tahiti.  Much more here also than I can tell , but it gave me another taste of sailing thru paradise.  We stopped at Pitcairn Island and took the entire male population aboard and to a nearby island for them to collect wood.  An experience I will never forget!

Shortly after this some good sailing friends asked me to join them on their 58′ Alden schooner "White Cloud" from Golfito Costa Rica to Tahiti.  We cruised the Galapagos, Pitcairn (again!), Mangareva, Tuamotus and Society Ialands in French Polynesia for 7 months.

My "easy and simple" life got complicated.  I came back to San Diego and found it had totally changed! I felt I could not participate in that world view again.  My salvation came quickly as I was able to buy the boat of two unwitting non-sailors who thought they were going to sail to paradise in Micronesia but were clueless and turned around and dumped the boat into my open arms.   I prepared "Zorina" to sail to Alaska.  Why Alaska?  As much as I loved the South Pacific I was somehow drawn to the higher latitudes.  Maybe it was because It would be new and different for me, but also, Zorina, a 34′ oak hulled, copper sheathed Baltic Sea ketch built in Sweden, would be right at home in Glacier Bay, my ultimate destination.

My buddy Rob was going to sail north with me but he backed out after our sea trial around the Channel Islands.  With only a month before leaving I did not want to risk having incompatible or incapable crew so I did it alone.  It was 3700 miles in 37 days via the old sailing ship route 2000 miles offshore around the Pacific High.  What an adventure! I loved it and had no trouble with loneliness. I found I was happy as a clam, just me and the awesomeness of nature and I felt more connected to "something greater" than I ever had before.

Alaska was my kind of place!  I felt right at home as everything fell right into place for me there.  I cruised SE Alaska in the summer and in the winter I cross-county skiied out the back door of my cabin in the woods on Douglas Island.  I got involved with the wooden boatbuilding program at UAS and became an unofficial TA there while building 2 small boats, a 12 sailing dinghy and a 17′ kayak.  I learned Acupressure and Cranio-sacral therapy and worked professionally at the Acupressure Institute of Alaska as a therapist.  I sold Zorina as I did not have the time for my new career and keep up an older wooden boat in Alaska.  But I still cruised the local islands in my 12 cruising dinghy, camping ashore, and did a 19 day, 100mile kayak trip thru the Chichagoff  Wilderness on the outside coast north of Sitka.  In the winter I studied philosophy, psychology and spirituality sitting it my stuffed chair in front of the woodstove with Eastwood, the neighbor’s golden retriever at my feet while watching the snow fall out my windows.  I was content!

But life had other plans for me.   I met a gal, fell in love at the same time things were falling apart for me at the Acupressure Institute.  I moved back down to Ferndale, Washington to be with Aiyana and we got married.  That didn’t work out and I bought Shariyat when I needed to focus on something within my comfort zone and have a place to live on my own.  The information I found online indicated that the Columbia 26MKII had a very good reputation and I soon found out why.  Being a lifelong sailor and shipwright I became enamored with her abilities, so much so that I decided to turn her into a serious along-shore ocean cruising vessel.  I had spoken at length with a fellow who successfully sailed a C26II to New Zealand and discussed the modifications he had made to do so (such as the stabilizing fin and rudder strengthening).  Much work and modification was done along these lines culminating in the sea-trial; singlehanding up the outside of Vancouver Island.  <ilink>(see "A Sailor Returns Home") This was a very successful trip, so much so (I see now) that it sowed the seeds of moving on to a larger, more serious world cruising vessel.  So after 9 wonderful years of sailing Shariyat it is time to make room for the next major change in my life and get back to sailing those "far-away seas"!