So my life is essentially nothing but mistakes – choice of women, choice of lifestyle – just bad choices, man. When it comes to owning boats, however, I think I’ve done pretty well – Shaw 650, Melges 32, a couple (!) of Flying Tiger 10’s, and even the Ericson 35 MK II was a great boat for what we wanted to do with it.
But I must have been high AF when I thought buying this was a good idea!
It is a Santa Cruz 33, hull #2. I sailed on a couple of them when they were brand new as a teenager, I dug they way they looked, and they were pretty quick in the day (key phrase!). On a nostalgia trip when I bought the 33, reality quickly entered the picture. It rated high and sailed slow. And it wasn’t much fun to sail,at all.
We managed to win one regatta because the main completion was a boat full of idiots. Tippy, slow, awful would be my best summation. And you couldn’t even properly bang in the stupid aft double bed under the cockpit.
We really did make it look quite nice, and One Sails did a nice job with the sails, but I really fucked up letting Selden dictate the specs on the rig. I wanted a skinny, double spreader rig, but they insisted on a bigger tube with single spreaders. It was a fucking tree trunk, wouldn’t bend and looked so frigging awful. I wish I could remember the name of the a-hole at Selden, I’d gladly crucify him here.
Like I said, lottsa bad choices, and for boats, this was the worst!
