Far from Home This Maine-built schooner might seem out of place in Southern California, but a dedicated group of volunteers have kept BILL OF RIGHTS sailing out of Chula Vista for eight years now
Marlinspike chatted with Don Johnson of the South Bayfront Sailing Association in November. Marlinspike: Don, let’s start by talking about the history of the schooner. How is it that a Maine-built boat came to be in Chula Vista? Don Johnson: Now, that is a real good question. I have pieces of that answer. I don’t have the complete story. I know the early parts better than the middle parts. Joe Davis, of course, commissioned the boat to be built. MS: That was in the early seventies..? DJ: His family apparently at some point had had a large schooner and I think it had been in his blood pretty much all along. So he wanted to build his schooner, did a lot of research, spent time with Howard Chappelle getting suggestions as to what would make beautiful, fast schooner. I guess a lot of the material referenced the Wanderer. She’s not a replica of the Wanderer, but a number of the characteristics are incorporated. MS: Is this Sterling Hayden’s Wanderer you’re talking about?
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DJ: I don’t think so, I think it precedes that. MS: But was he looking for a yacht? He wasn’t thinking about doing sail training, about getting passenger certification. DJ: He did get passenger certification. He did do sail training, but I believe that had a lot to do with financially supporting the vessel. But it was built more along the lines of a yacht than a sail-training vessel. The original boat had private cabins. The A compartment, which is now open and has 16 open bunks, had eight cabins of two bunks each, each with its own lavatory. Not with a head, but a sink. No engine, of course. And it was built, I believe, to do sail training and to race. Davis was a racing enthusiast. So the rig at one point was quite a bit bigger than it is today. Apparently, it wasn’t performing quite as well as he liked, so they increased the area of the main, raised the rig, put a taller topmast on and sailed her that way for a while. When she changed hands, that rig was cut back, and an engine was added. So she operated on the East Coast for a little bit after that, and I’m getting fuzzy about the years at this point, but somewhere in the late 1980s, a different owner had her put the engine in, brought her around through the Canal, and all the way up the West Coast up to Coos Bay, and up to the
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