El Toro to San Juan
When I was 13 I nagged my parents into getting me a sailboat. Although we were basically poor (a reality that 13 year olds don't understand!)my parents knew I had a bug that was not going away, I had been making my own 10" sailboats since I was 7. My mother talked my dad into cutting a hole in the bottom of his 8' pham, she bought some sailcloth scraps from a loft and sewed it together into a main. They tracked down the maker of El Toro's and Dad purchased an unfinished boom and mast. The rest was up to me. It took most of the summer, but that August we launched the boat in a local lake where my brother and I learned to sail, by trial and error. Later in life I have had three small runabouts before getting another sailboat. The second boat we have had for 9 years, an 18' Bucanneer which I have made many improvements on. Last fall we found a 23' San Juan, the boat and sails were in sad shape, but the price was right. A new main was run up the mast last weekend. The interior woodwork has been gutted and replaced with Cherry and White Ash, backing plates have been added to the cleats and pulpit stantions and all hardware has been reseated. The trailer required rerigging the electrical system, replacing the tongue, the old one was bent about 10 degrees up. I also designed and installed a 7' tongue extension because retreiving the boat required me to bury the back end of our truck in water up to the bumper. We plan on taking it out for the third time this next weekend for a final shakedown before vacation.
