October 30, 2018-Twenty Five Years Ago

bill baum image
Winning PSSC

Wings is sailing home to Shilshole Bay Marina on October 23, 1993, after winning the PSSC regatta. It was tough sailing that year with winds in the 24-30 knot range for the three races on Saturday, then light winds on Sunday and we battled it out with Bill Buchan’s Sachem, in the end beating them by .25 points. It was mostly crew work, including one glorious leeward rounding in the last race where we came into a big traffic jam at the mark in 6th place and did a perfect floater takedown keeping our speed up while the other boats were basically stopped and came out in 3rd then hung on to win the race and the regatta. We have a good crew now but we had a pretty good crew back then too, most of them had sailed with us for several years, some for eight years.

You can see who they were on our log book page for that day here.

That was our last season racing in Seattle and it was a good one; we got trophies in 35 out of the 48 races we did that year, including 14 first places. After this season we stopped racing for two years to completely remodel the boat for long distance cruising.

Those years were glory years of living full time aboard Wings and racing every week, going sailing or cruising whenever we were not racing, and still having time for jobs in the city (we had a 6’ hanging locker full of suits, men’s and women’s). We also loved the community we sailed in with all of our yacht club friends in Seattle, at the Corinthian Yacht Club, the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club and especially all of our crew, and racing 40-50 times a year. Those were the days.

Crew: As best we can remember the crew positions are as follows: Jim Bonnichsen, Foredeck, Jim Watson, Foredeck, Bryan George, Mast, Jennifer Wright, Halyards, Kathy Clotfelter, Halyards, George Harvey, Trimmer and Grinder, Mark Nuss, Trimmer, Robert Schuler, Trimmer, Scott Davidson, Mainsail and tactics, Carol Noel, Runners, Judy Jensen, Runners, Fred Roswold, Helm. They were family to us after eight years and we keep in touch with many of them.

Sails: The mainsail in this picture was one I made on the floor of CYC in 1993. This was its first season and it was a winner. It was Kevlar/Mylar, 52 panels, designed with a home-made Lotus 123 spreadsheet. Each of the panels were shaped before sewing. We used ultra-light graphite battens which had a nasty habit of breaking if we flogged the sail at all. It was last seen in Raffles Marina in Singapore in 2007 serving as an awning for a marine store. The spinnaker was the 1.5 oz runner that came with the boat and it was already old then. A wonderful sail which we used relentlessly for another 11 years, from 1986 to 2007, when it blew up two days in a row while winning the King’s Cup Regatta (with one all night sewing session between races.) We used a variety of headsails in this regatta, primarily the Fracker #1 and the Sobstad #3, both were paneled Kevlar sails, tough but heavy.

The Boat: There is not a lot of difference between Wings in 1993 and Wings today. It would look the same to you if you saw it back then however it was more stripped inside, back then, but Judy and I still lived on it, and we didn’t unload it to go racing back then either. Since 1993 we’ve added a bit of furniture, all of which is made of ultra light weight nomex and carbon fiber honeycomb panels we got from Boeing surplus. Plus we added tankage, ground tackle, wind vane, etc. Not a lot else.

Click here for a few more images (more to come later).

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, La Cruz Huancaxtle