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New Boat 4 Sled

Camry.jpg

Capitola Boat Club (CBC), with rear seat removed, on the move to launch at Santa Cruz Harbor.

Since no one has answered the above Friday trivia question correctly for the Beckman's pie and ice cream, here are 2 hints as to the most prolifically built boat in Santa Cruz, well more than 200. The question remains what is the boat and who is the builder, who remains in business to this day?

aero dinghy.jpeg
 
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Since no one has answered the above Friday trivia question correctly for the Beckman's pie and ice cream, here are 2 hints as to the most prolifically built boat in Santa Cruz, well more than 200. The question remains what is the boat and who is the builder, who remains in business to this day?

Someone a while back suggested there should be age categories for answering Sled’s quizzes. I believe the answer is the 13’ BANSHEE designed by Richard (Dick) Reid. There was a series of builders starting with Reid himself (his company was called Marine Plastics). Barry Bruch took over the project, called his company Banshee International and built boats in Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley. Buzz Ballenger also built a bunch of Banshees in Santa Cruz. I’m pretty sure there were more Banshees built in Santa Cruz than any other fiberglas sailboat.

I worked for Dick Reid. He was quite a salesman and went around promoting the Banshee at various small boat venues. I was paid to demonstrate the boat while Dick stayed on the dock making deals.

I’m surprised Bob J. hasn’t answered this one since I’m pretty sure he owned (or owns?) a Banshee.

The rest of the Banshee design story is in a series of posts from this thread in 2017.
 
Someone a while back suggested there should be age categories for answering Sled’s quizzes. I believe the answer is the 13’ BANSHEE designed by Richard (Dick) Reid. There was a series of builders starting with Reid himself (his company was called Marine Plastics). Barry Bruch took over the project, called his company Banshee International and built boats in Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley. Buzz Ballenger also built a bunch of Banshees in Santa Cruz. I’m pretty sure there were more Banshees built in Santa Cruz than any other fiberglas sailboat. I worked for Dick Reid. He was quite a salesman and went around promoting the Banshee at various small boat venues. I was paid to demonstrate the boat while Dick stayed on the dock making deals. I’m surprised Bob J. hasn’t answered this one since I’m pretty sure he owned (or owns?) a Banshee. The rest of the Banshee design story is in a series of posts from this thread in 2017.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner, for DAZZLER. There were more 13' foot Banshee dinghies built in Santa Cruz than any other class. Sparmaker Buzz Ballenger built "well over 200 Banshees" and remains in the marine business to this day, as does David Hodges at Ullman Sails in Santa Cruz.
 
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Congrats to Cal Poly Humboldt for just winning Division II Women's National Rowing Championship in both 4's & 8's!. Anchored by Rower of the Year, Dana Foley, in #4 seat, CPH pulled away to win by open water over 2nd place Central Oklahoma. Dana also earned All Academic honors and is the daughter of circumnavigators Linda and Jim Foley on their SC-40, also named DANA. Jim, as many know, was a famed surfer, surfboard maker, yacht designer and builder responsible for such rocket ships as 3RD REEF and PACIFIC LETTUCE.
 
I’m surprised Bob J. hasn’t answered this one since I’m pretty sure he owned (or owns?) a Banshee.

Yep, here's a much younger and skinnier Bob J. at the Banshee Nationals in 1975. This is between races off Ballena Bay:

Banshee Nationals.jpg

I bought another Banshee years later to take on a family camping trip. Great little boats!
 
Has anyone heard from Rob on TIGER BEETLE? When last heard from early this year he was hanging with crocodiles on La Ropa beach in Zihuatanejo....Rob?
 
Something cool is watching baby barn owls being hatched, raised, and fledge. All the more reason never to use rat poison. Since these cuties were hatched. Momma Owl has brought in an average of 8 rodents/night for her kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn2vft9vxQg

Cuties for sure ! We have Barn Owls here, so we put up an Owl House, but it has been occupied by every other tree dweller you can imagine- except Barn Owls. Go figure. No one should EVER use rodent poison !
 
I find the following admission from the skipper of Team Holcim-PRB in the Ocean Race, Leg 5, pretty incredible. Because of the loss of their masthead wind instruments they were sailing blind, WTF? I guess because they are sailing around the world trimming and steering from inside the cabin for the whole time, of course they can't determine windspeed and direction...But still... What happened to Windex's, tell tales, and looking out the window?

“We had no wind information on the boat,” explained Escoffier. “In other words, we didn’t know the angle of the wind in relation to the boat, nor the strength of the wind. So when we’re going pretty much straight ahead and everything’s going well, it’s fine. On the other hand, when the wind is variable, and you have to make gybes or sail choices, it’s difficult.

“This has an impact on both performance and strategy. You can’t tell exactly where the wind is coming from, and it’s very complicated to know only by feel. So we steer with information on speed and angle of heel, and learn to use different sensations and sensors other than those of the wind. Of course, we also have routing information to help us set our route, but it’s not always accurate.”

Routing by the best and most expensive routers in the world "not always accurate?" Gee, can't tell the wind direction and speed and couldn't trust their weathermen. I'm shocked. The next thing we'll learn is they leave foul weather gear behind because it's too heavy.
 
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WTF? I guess because they are sailing around the worldtrimming and steering from inside the cabin for the whole time, of course they can't determine windspeed and direction...But still... What happened to Windex's, tell tales, and looking out the window? I’m shocked. The next thing we'll learn is they leave foul weather gear behind because it's too heavy.

I really hadn’t been paying much attention to this edition of The Ocean Race before the long Southern Ocean leg. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I find it had to relate with what this race has become. I feel a similar lack of interest in the current day America’s Cup.

As for what’s next for The Ocean Race… obviously, fully electronically controlled boats with no one onboard. What do you need the sailors for? Plus, those boats are damned uncomfortable and dangerous.
 
I really hadn’t been paying much attention to this edition of The Ocean Race before the long Southern Ocean leg. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I find it had to relate with what this race has become. I feel a similar lack of interest in the current day America’s Cup.
As for what’s next for The Ocean Race… obviously, fully electronically controlled boats with no one onboard. What do you need the sailors for? Plus, those boats are damned uncomfortable and dangerous.

Please tell me if I'm wrong. But find 11th Hour Racing disingenuous advertising (NPR) their race around the world as "protecting the oceans" while running into whales at high speed (20-30 knots), damaging not only their boats, themselves, and likely the whale with their slicing foils. Does anyone know how many times the RACE entries have punched their red "whale strike" alert button?

https://www.golocalprov.com/sports/11th-hour-racing-team-may-have-hit-whale-2-crew-members-injured
 
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An arrogant observation:cool:
To be expected;
the up side;
The tech that has been developed over the years has made it easier and extended the sailing life for many of us "OLD"timers.
The not so up side;
That same tech has enabled many inexperienced, and unskilled individuals into the top ranks of the sailing world.
 
We go to sea in sieves, we do, in sieves we go to sea:
In spite of all our friends could say,
On a summer's morn, on a windy day,
In sieves we go to sea!
And when our sieves turn round and round,
And every one cries 'You'll all be drowned!'
We call aloud, 'Our sieves ain't big, But we don't care an unstayed rig.
We go to sea in sieves we do.

We sail away in sieves, we do, In sieves we sail so fast,
With only beautiful pea-green chutes tied with a snuffer by way of a sail,
To a tall aluminum mast;
And every one said, who saw us go,
'O won't they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long.
And happen what may, it's extremely wrong
In a sieve to sail so fast!'

The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in;
So to keep us dry, we wrapped our feet in plotting sheets all folded neat,
And fastened them down with a pin.
And we pass the nights in our crockery-jars,
And each of us said, 'How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our sieves we spin!'

And all night long we sail away; and when the sun goes down,
we whistle and warble a moony song
To the humming of an autopilot gone wrong.
In the shade of the twins,
'O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in our sieves and crockery-jars.
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
To the shade of the Tree so cool.'

We sail across the Pacific, we do,
To an island all covered with trees.
And we bring an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And we've bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.

And in two years we all come back,
In two years or more,
And every one says, 'How round we've grown!
For we've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of Hanalei.
And we drink our health, and give a feast
With beer made of beautiful yeast;
And every one says, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a sieve,
To the Bay of Hanalei.

Our eyes are red, and our hands are blue,
And we go to sea in sieves.
____/)____/)_/)_____
 
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We dream of Tree of Hanalei, some days around the clock,
But haven't set a sail yet, as we work here at the dock.
And with every dream that stalks our mind, we swear we'll soon let go,
And watch the Farallones sink astern from the warmth of down below.

All spring, we’ve slaved aboard our sloops, doubted by knowing smiles,
And the autopilot still won't work, so now its got frequent flyer miles.
We’ve patched our rents, and plugged the vents, dogged hatch and porthole down.
Put rigging up and down the mast, and inspected her around.

Our wives have long since wrote us off, not a nickel more to spend.
They gave us twenty years of patience, Boys, and now they're at their end.
But dreams are hard to sink, just ask Dwight and Beetle and Lou.
Then our loves laughed with us and said we'd just have to go.

Now we're alone aboard our little ships in a gale off the coast.
And we worked like hell to reef our main before it went to toast.
And the groan we gave as it came down, it caused us to proclaim.
Halleluja! We'll get to Hanalei and that Tree that caused this pain.

We surf down Pacific rollers, a squall hot on our tail.
Have to get that spinny down, before it blows the sail.
But Roll Call's on the radio, better check in very soon.
The General's talkin' to Sail A Vie, Boys, and singing a woeful tune.
His mast is down, the General says, but the jig is not yet done.
He'll jury up that sucker soon and continue on his run.

And you, to whom adversity has dealt a heavy blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go.
Though your rig may be be broken and race about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a boat, a love, a friend
Turn to like Ken and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain.
And like the Singlehanded Sailors, Rise Again!

~~~~~_/) ~~~ sleddog, in memory of Jim Tallet, Tom Kirschbaum, and Stan Rogers
 
We were cutter-rigged and rakish,
with long and lissome hulls,
And we flew the pretty colors of asymmetricals.
With light sails pulling mightily in the fore,
We sailed the Single Handed Transpac in alternate years of yore.

With a boom preventer to the rail, like a well-conducted ship,
We'd each a brace of feather jigs and a tether at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we trolled for golden mahi, and laid their fins aboard.

And flying fish filled the scuppers and squid dried beneath the pole,
And the varnish was all splattered with scales on the sole.
But we soon were washed and rinsed, as the squalls marched slowly by.
And tradewinds blew us foaming westward under popcorn in the sky.

O! Then it was while lying beneath the myriad night time stars,
We could hear the dolphins squeaking as they swam in from afar.
Then having trimmed the boat asleep, with little else to do,
We danced a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.

O! The slack key on the stereo and our slapping naked soles,
We danced a little jig and curtsied as she rolled!
Ah! the thirsty solo sailors and the radio pranks we played,
Would be told beneath the Tree at the ending of the day.

With the silver seas around us and the full moon overhead,
And the skipper gazing westward with his compass glowing red.
The cutters and their merry crews will be anchored not far away,
A little south of sunset in the Bay of the Hanalei.

hanalei.jpg
 
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The wind is blowing softly on the spinny and the spars,
We've said goodbye to loving friends, to West Marine, and cars.
The lights of the Golden Gate are at our backs, the sky full of stars,
And we're sailing to Hanalei again.

Oh yes, we're sailing to Hanalei again.
With a nylon chute, a foaming wake, and music on the brain.
All of Elon's money couldn't buy this moment in time,
When we're sailing to Hanalei again.

We've spent our time aloft and alow, we've studied the RRC's,
Memorized the PCR's, the Gribs, and race entries.
But now were leaving RYC, next stop is Hanalei Tree
Oh yes, we're sailing to Hanalei again.

We surf the waves, dodge the squalls, looking to be fast.
And hum sea songs at sunset, standing by the mast,
Southwest we sail, into the sunset, on a sea so wonderfully vast
And we're sailing to Hanalei again.

Oh yes, we're sailing to Hanalei again.
With a cup of Joe, a sunrise watch, and songs of sweet refrain,
All of the hoops we've jumped through are now distant memories of pain.
And we're sailing to Hanalei again.

A big full moon is on the bow, setting at the western rim,
WILDFLOWER's running hard in a sunrise squall, twins in perfect trim.
To leeward the General is smiling broad, as the stars are growing dim.
And we're sailing to Hanalei again.

Oh yes, we're sailing to Hanalei again.
With a sound little ship, a determined mood, and tethers clipped in.
I tell you all of Elon's money couldn't buy this moment in time.
And we're sailing to Hanalei again.

__/)___/)__^^_____O_____

rainbow-on-hanalei-bay.jpg
 
Here's a photo from Dave Morris, SHTP 2012 and current commercial and pleasure airplane pilot.

airplane view of distant storm.jpg

Airplane view of an approaching storm.
 
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