Captain Dan's Fleet Of Sailboats

Lately I have been locating photos of my old sailboats. Some were very low resolution snap shots taken with an Instamatic, some were taken with large format cameras from aircraft and boats and some were digital. Those that were not already in digital format, I tried to scan. Obviously, the small Instamatic shots were hard to scan, so the quality is not very good. I did the best that I could.

So this is a history of my fleet of boats during my more than 40 years of sailing.

1967-1968: This was really my second boat. I bought this while in Junior High. It was called a "Sea Scooter", a 10 ft sailing dinghy. I learned a lot about sailing with this little boat!

 1968-1972: My father and I built this boat. It is 15 feet long and built from plywood and covered with a layer of fiberglass. When we built this boat, we bought the plans at the local lumber yard for 25 cents.

 1972-1975: This is "Rascal". It is a Victory 21. It was a small boat at 21 feet long and had a small cuddy cabin mainly for storage. But, I took a few short cruises in Puget Sound with it. It also was the boat that started my racing career.

 1972-1975: "Rascal"

 1975-1977: This is "Rascal Too". It is a Tanzer 22. At 22feet long, it had enough accommodations to cruise comfortably. I took several cruises in Puget Sound and to the San Juan Islands with this boat. I also raced this boat a lot and I was pretty successful.

 1977-1999: "Good News" This boat is a Bystedt 30. It was designed by Bob Perry as a half ton racer under the IOR(International Offshore Rule). Only nine of these boats were built. Although it was designed primarily as a race boat, it had a comfortable interior and lots of storage space. I raced this boat a lot and in the 22 years I owned it, won a lot of awards. In addition this boat took me to farther than any of my previous or current boats. I cruised a lot in Puget Sound, San Juan Islands and on into Canada including two circumnavigations of Vancouver Island and to the Queen Charlotte Islands. This boat actually contributed to my enjoyment of cycling. It had enough space inside to carry a bicycle partially disassembled. On my long cruises, I took a bicycle with me and when I could get ashore, I could explore inland. I enjoyed sailing this boat. It had a light helm and tracked well. Like many boats designed to the IOR rule, it rolled a lot when sailing fast downwind with the spinnaker.

 1999-Present: "Great White" is a J35. A J35 was designed in 1984 to be a high performance, simple, sailing machine. About 330 J35's were built between 1984 and 1992. I looked at these boats when they first hit the market and fell in love with them. When I got to the point in my life when I could afford a J35, I searched the Internet and found this boat in San Diego. When I was in San Diego on a business trip I arranged to see it. It was more "complete" and had more equipment than the boats I was viewing in Puget Sound. So I bought it and had it transported to the NW. This boat was well equipped and had most of the interior options that make it comfortable to cruise in. I actually lived onboard for five months when I was between homes. For me, I found it adequate. I have not cruised as much as I did on "Good News". Most of the time on this boat has been racing. We have been fairly successful with this boat. It is a thrill to sail and the power is felt when the wind picks up. It is no longer considered a high performance boat like the newer boats that have come out since the J35 was built, but we still are as fast as a lot of conventional 40 foot boats. That is what the ads said it could do!

1999-Present: "Great White"