NOZOMI once asked where I get "your stuff. "It reads like Forrest Gump witnessing defining events of the latter half of the 20th century."
Thanks, Rob. As close friends and family know, I've been keeping logbooks for more than 55 years. To date, there are 30 logs, of different sizes and shapes, detailing a life of sail. Notes, writing, photos, and sketches cover about 4,500 pages, 300,000 miles, and weigh a hefty 30 pounds. All the logs are written in ink, as befits a requirement to be a legal document.
It's not always about sailing. Logbooks are a record of life's passages, course and direction, adventures, mishaps, lessons learned, friends met, safe anchorages.
Here's Day 5 of the 1978 Singlehanded Transpac on WILDFLOWER
And a hideout in the Sea of Cortez
I began writing early partly because I could only speak with great difficulty. Since childhood I've been a stutterer. Spoken words were precious, hard fought, infrequent, subject to interruption, misinterpretation, even derision. Writing was easier. Until 8th grade that is, when a high school English teacher required essays be produced in order of 1) outline 2) rough draft 3) final draft. Miss Fenner was not amused when she discovered I wrote my final draft first, faked a rough draft second, and created an outline last.
The written word took me into books, especially sea stories of voyaging in small boats. Voyagers were my heroes, and their little ships had relatable personalities: Tough, simple, unpretentious.
YANKEE's Wander-World was one,
TREKKA 'Round the World was another. Little did I realize that later in life I would be honored to meet Irving Johnson and John Guzzwell. both men of big heart and stature whose writing had helped influence pursuing a life of sail.
By the end of 8th grade hell, I'd surreptitiously, in the back of class, designed my boat, completed lists of supplies, researched equipment, and pursued necessary charts.
Later, in 1973, long time friend Kim Desenberg and I became partners in a communal bookstore as I began the final push of building the boat, WILDFLOWER, I'd dreamed back in elementary school. In 1973, Kim and I crossed the Pacific together, as far as Australia, on IMPROBABLE. We continue sailing together to this day.
I wish to thank SSS, the Forum, friends, and readers for providing a safe and supportive harbor in which to anchor. It's been fun, especially digging out history from the logs, and other sources. I hope it's entertaining, educational, maybe controversial. There are a 1000 ways to rig and sail a boat, and mine is only one.
I encourage anyone with questions, subjects needing investigation no matter how trivial, or seeking an opinion, to speak up, publicly or privately.
As long as it's fun.....
~skip
It's amazing what the right kinds of tools can accomplish. Mike said to me one time, "I just don't know how any sailor can function without their own machine shop." He was being quite serious, too (as anyone who knows him knows). He's quite the character, and an extremely skilled machinist. Here's a picture of the sheave box etched up and rough cut. We did this yesterday afternoon. The problem was that TPI (builder of the F38) cut an over-sized hole into the carbon fiber mast so that their off-the-shelf jib sheave box could be dropped in, then just slipped onto this thin aluminum plate, which had been shaped over and riveted onto the CF. The only thing holding the box onto the plate to keep it from sliding off was a bolt through the CF. Corrosion was setting in and it was only a matter of time before it all came off. It is a sturdy boat and this thing has lasted 28 years, but really; what were they thinking with such a twinky fix?! 
