Latitude 38 - November 1979-1980

MORA EVALUATION

to blazing life. Gads!

The CCA (Cruising Club of America) came into being because a small group of meter boat types were strangling East Coast Yachting. MORA came into be¬ ing because Olin Stephens controlled MORC and they would not yield to our demands on safety items, like the height of lifelines (we crawl offshore here, not stand). The lOR is dying and MHS will eventually take it’s place. Olin has lost his ability to hold back new develop¬ ment in yachting (he held off light boatssince the 40’s).

The San Francisco - Santa Cruz area is unique in America: Big winds, big seas, men who create outside the rules. Those who do it become the experts. We survive, learn, make our own rules. Go it alone. PHRF is workable and cheap. We encourage the future while retaining only the best of the past. MORA can do it. MORA plus Santa Cruz is the future. We do not ask for the future, we take it. Lead the way. The others will follow. In MORA’s beginning St. Francis YC stood behind us. If we

when lowering the mainto reef a pawl in thewinch failed and I drovemy fist into my mouth . . .

we encourage the futurewhile retaining only the bestof the past. MORAplus Santa Cruz is thefuture.

are the best, they will again.

Give me a two-year vote of con¬ fidence. Make if you wish, your other officers conservative. Klitza is' a good man, and a knowledgeable one.

Who is this critic of MORA and what has he done? In 1954, a year after I left the philosophy and history department of the University of Washington, and a year after becoming a sailmaker’s ap¬ prentice, my ocean sailing began. With the owner, I left Seattle bound for San Francisco on the 24-ft gaff topsail cutter Wanderer II. We took an offshore route, and 130 miles out it began to blow. We hove to each night for 10 nights, then started in for California. Four days later the engineless cutter ar¬ rived in the Bay, with a happy crew on¬ board .

My next trip south, there were three of us aboard a light-displacement 60-ft Garden sloop, Mata Hari. It was a fast, uneventful trip.

Late October of 1957 saw me and several others hove-to off Cape Blanco

in southern Oregon, aboard the 63-ftyawl Indra IV. In this storm I discovered prolonged vomiting will dye Dacron sheets green. I also discovered the faults of the old style wire halyard winches,

\and new, untried gear. When lowering the main to reef, a pawl in the winchfailed, and I drove my fist into my mouth, breaking several teeth. My in¬ terest in yachting was beginning to wane, but the trip in the same yacht across the Gulf of Mexico washed awaynorthern sins.

Racing and sailmaking in the Nor¬thwest became dull to me, so in 1961 I entered the Bay scene. In the mid-60’s I had the good luck to be sailing master on the 110-ft schooner, Le Voyageur, sailing from Central America to Vic¬ toria, and then back down the coast to Mexico. She had 16 feet of draft, 130 foot main mast, and I learned muchfrom her.

Then it was back to Bears, Tritons, and the little cutter Esprit. I raced in the last year MORC was in existence, aboard a Cal 20. Buying a Gladiator 24,Growltiger, I joined in the protest that was to found MORA, and became safe¬ ty officer. At this time a large boat was 24 feet; MvORA changed very rapidly when the very fast Cal 28 arrived.

After years as safety officer I becamevice commodore. As special race chair¬ man, I created the Singlehanded Race,the Gulf of the Farallones Race (I tried to solve the problem of how to roundthe Farallones, and so: S.F. to Drakes Bay, spend the night, round the Farallones, to Half Moon Bay, spend the night, then home). Next I created the Newport Race, posters and all, then the 500 mile race to Ensenada. Part of the thrill of each race was having no prior knowledge. I acquired many skills doing this work, especially with magazines and papers. MORA at this stage became much talked about and it was exciting.

A clarentist from the S.F. Symphonypushed MORA one step further. DonCaroll showed me a book from the Philosophical Society of England. It was High Speed Boats, and in that book was

ONE VIEWPOINT

described a small, ocean-going keelboat capable of planing. The boat was Black Soo, a Zee-eel class cutter of designer Van de Stadt of Holland. Capable of 23 knots, photographic evidence in the Bay of Biscay while rac¬ ing. I wrote Van de Stadt, and MORA members Hal Nachtrieb and Ralph Nobles agreed to have it built. Hal called it Williwaw. A tough boat to sail. I get sick when in the ocean, but Hal got even sicker. Not a winning combina¬ tion. On a trip to Germany, Hal got anew wife, a new tuba, and sold his in¬ terest in the cutter. Ralph and I changed the name to Starbuck, got it rated at 32.5, and finally got the boat going. Thirteen firsts in 13 starts in our last season. Feeling high, I issued a challenge in the Examiner in 1968: $400 one each apiece all round, St. Francis round the Farallones and home. Winner take all. No takers.

However, a rustic from Santa Cruz, one Bill Lee, was fairly pissed at all this. He scaled up a 505 and presto! Like Magic came a 2,600-lb, 30ft waterline hovel with aluminum keel boats. She was the fastest boat around, and I did not renew my $400 offer. At the same time George Olsen and Wayne Kocher took a Francis Herreschoff ideal, and 2,200 pounds later the pretty Grendel was born. So all three boats raced in MORA. But not for long.’MORA’s newofficers banned one-off boats, and put them in a special class. Lee and George went home. Ralph and I were left withthe only boat in our class, always first or last, so we sold Starbuck, and left the racing scene. Soon 1 went to Canada, and Ralph went to building a 40-ft,29-knot Starbuck.

In 1974 1 emerged from my sailmak¬ ing in the bush to be sailing master (and-to make sails) aboard ex MORA member Russ Kubiaks Namu. We tookfirst in Calss A and set a course record on the Victoria-to-Maui Race.

In 1976 I said to hell with ideal boats and bought a 43-ft Skipjack ketch and sailed it to Alaska, arriving in Decem¬ber. It was so nice a trip I then bought a Coronado 35 and arrived in Alaska

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again in the dead of winter, with 10 in¬ ches of snow on deck, the weather 3 degrees above zero, and it blowing a gale. The summer of ’78 saw the yacht head south with myself and a compe¬ tent girl as crew. With no engine we sail¬ ed the maze and rapids of the inside passage, arriving in Seattle a month after starting, filled with great respect for the sailing qualities of Bill Tripp’s design.

Now the spring of ‘79 finds me back home in the Bay scene, racing on various boats and looking around. I have found MORA exists, but not with much life. I find your Commodore box¬ ed in with the establishment. (Most of these thoughts I have already expressed to him.)

All of my proposals are practical and can be done within the time asked. Why bother at all? Coming so fresh from the bush and the still, haunting beauty of the misty fjiords, I feel we have to replace what nature has not provided. The Gods were not kind to the coast of California. There are no cruising

j

forty and sixty footyachts are difficult anddangerous in these waters,we must not listen to thosewho sail large yachts.

the gods were not

kind to the coast ofCalifornia, there are nocruising grounds, islands,rapids, bears, fjords . . .

grounds, no islands, no roaring rapids that do 16 or 20 knots, no bears to count on the beach, no fjiords that wander 100 miles with snug coves every 30 miles. Nature was not kind to our coast, and so California sailors must race. We must take what beauty we can, create our own excitement, create our pleasures, and under very difficult conditions at that. We sail within 30 miles of the 8th most windy spot in the world (Point Reyes), have but one har¬ bor in 85 miles, sail in very cold water, with big seas and high winds.

The men and women who sail these water in very small boats are the only source of knowledge. Forty and sixty foot yachts are difficult and dangerous in these waters. We must not listen to those who sail large yachts, or to those who do not sail at all. Now sail these waters we must. Let us do it safely, with great skill, and quickly. Finally comes camaraderie and pride. MORA is alive and fun.

What say you? What says the last twoyears? Donald Goring