SIGHTINGS fire — cont’d

PHOTOS GREG DELEZYNSKI

sank. The cause of the fire may never be determined, but it’s suspected to have been electrical in origin. Sadly, Brian was left with only his driver’s license, the clothes on his back and his flip-flops.

Spread, a 45-ft ketch in Ensenada was destroyed by a galley fire. Check out the plume shooting from the outboard. Inset, the toppled mast acted as a chimney. Above, Brian Jose’s shock at the loss of his boat turned to happiness when the blindfold was removed and he saw the replacement Triton, right.

Cruisers are a tight knit group, however, and Club Cruceros, the cruisers club housed in a small building at Marina de La Paz, passed the hat for the now-homeless Brian. As this issue went to press, more than $1,500 had been raised from donations by cruisers and locals, and many more offers rolled in for temporary accommodations. But a few ‘guardian angels’ took it a step further. On March 21, just a day after his home — and his dream of cruising — was destroyed, Brian Jose was walked blindfolded down the dock at La Marina del Palmar and presented with another Pearson Triton 28! “It was owned by a local and had been at anchor for quite some time,” reported Club Cruceros webmaster Tomas Daly. The ‘angels’ negotiated a price, towed it to the marina, and worked feverishly to clean it up before surprising Brian. Though its rudder is missing, the new boat seems to be in better overall shape than Shelly B. “A work party has already been formed,” reported cruiser Greg Delezynski. “A diver was able to salvage the rudder and winches off Shelly B, and others have volunteered to help re-rig the new boat, work on the engine and help with many other tasks.” If you would like to help out a cruiser in need, contact Club Cruceros at crucerosdelapaz@ yahoo.com. So what’s the name of Brian’s new Triton? There was really no other choice: Phoenix. — ld

the clipper race The Clipper Race — the British-run, pay-as-you-go, round-theworld race — has gotten short shrift in these pages in the past. Not because it’s not worthy: 10 identical Dubois 68 sloops crewed by 15-16 amateurs spend almost a year racing through all the oceans of the world; that’s exciting stuff. It’s because historically there have been few American participants and even fewer ties to the West Coast. And, frankly, with all the global racing going on, we have to draw the line somewhere. Change is in the wind, however, and, come this fall, that line is likely to be erased. There is not only a West Coast angle, there is the possibility that the fleet might stop here in San Francisco. You could call Robert Stephens, of Berkeley and Inverness, the agent of that change. The 68-year-old California native has been sailing since he was a youngster. He has owned and raced boats on the Bay since 1969, progressing up through a Pearson Triton and Newport 30 to his present boat, an Express 34 named Quartet. He’s even among the elite few who have been immortalized in these pages in photos of bone-rattling roundups. continued on outside column of next sightings page April, 2007 •

Latitude 38

• Page 121