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Page 34 •

Latitude 38

• October, 2011

LETTERS the loving, vulnerable, gentle, intimate, feminine side of life proudly still afloat. P.S. Many people love the name. For every criticism of the name, I have received more than several dozen enthusiastic praises. To each her own. P.P.S. If you are the type that still needs to pee on things to mark them as your own, and intend to pee all over this boat to mark it as your own (rather than settle for buying naming rights with the boat), then I'll tell you now that I intend to not sell her to you. Madame Dr. Jane Doe The anonymous owner of The Pink Panty Madame Dr. — We can't be sure, but it almost seems you're obsessing over this matter. While we're delighted that you didn't add to the legion of boats named Blow Job, Wet Spot, Passing Wind or worse, it seems improbable to us that you think you can remain "anonymous" when you're trying to sell a boat named The Pink Panty. What strikes us as even more odd is that you would care what other people think of your boat's name. We once knew a woman in the Caribbean who had a small sailboat named The Salty Vagina. She was supremely indifferent to what others thought, so there was no controversy at all. As for your assertion that "Columbia 34 Mk II hulls have long been very popular in macho competitive contexts such as racing," we don't mean to contradict you, but where did you get that idea? The 34 was part of the family of flush deck/blister house boats Bill Tripp designed for Columbia that included the 22, 26, 34, 39, 43, 50, 52 and to some extent the center cockpit 57. While the 43, 50, and 52s were raced with some success many years ago when they were new, in our 35 years of covering sailing, we can't recall anyone ever racing a Columbia 34 Mk II. We're not saying it's never been done, but rather the 34s were better known for their spacious interiors and surprising headroom. There is, however, a Columbia 34 whose memory always brings a smile to our face. This would be Breta, which is/was owned by Roy Wessbecher, who, if there were a Latitude 38 Sailing Hall of Fame, would occupy a prominent spot. Wessbecher told his story in the August '08 Changes: "Back in '93 ­— after a tough six-day offshore run from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas — I signed in for Latitude's then-'Some Like it Hot Rally'. In so doing, I got a now-famous bright hot pink t-shirt with a green jalapeno pepper on the back. But when the 'Some Like it Hot' list appeared in the next issue of the magazine, I found that I'd been dubbed 'Lonesome Roy'. "The nerve!" I thought to myself. "Do they even know me? That's defamation!" Sure, I was singlehanding my old Columbia 34 Breta at the time, and sure, it would have been nice to have the right partner along, but I was doing fine. So I let it go. Now, having covered 31,700 ocean miles and having visited 35 countries, 'Lonesome Roy' and old Breta are back. I finished the trip as I began it, singlehanded. But while en route I had a total of 17 crewmembers, all of them vegetarians — and all of them female. Cynthia, a Dutch girl, even lasted through the whole ugly Red Sea leg from Sri Lanka up to Israel —­and that 4,400 miles took 147 days. Susanne, a Swedish girl, did the Atlantic and the Caribbean with me, which was 3,400 miles and 109 days. Maus, my cat, accompanied me all the way around. "By the way, I kept an exact record of all my expenses during my circumnavigation. In the 4 years, 9 months and 9 days it took me to sail from Puerto Vallarta to Puerto Vallarta, I spent an average of $14.66 a day. That's $445 a month, $5,350 a year, or a total of $25,300. I had budgeted $20 day, so I came out way under budget. Those numbers, by the way, include every single expenditure. I did two bottom jobs, one in New