It remains a mystery of what happened to three Americans who in April disappeared while en route from Mexico to San Diego, CA. Kerry O’Brien, Frank O’Brien, and William Gross, aboard the La Fitte 44 Ocean Bound, had left Mazatlán with plans to stop in Cabo San Lucas but they never arrived.

Six months later, without any answers, Gross’ daughter Melissa offers closure with this tribute. Her dad was a major volunteer for Challenged Sailors San Diego (CSSD) who assisted in keeping the fleet floating, and it was here where she did a memorial during a CSSD sailing day:

First and foremost, thank you for being here and taking the time to honor my dad, Bill. Challenged Sailors has been an integral part of my dad’s life for the last several years.

As many of you know, dad had a passion for sailing and a deep love of the ocean. At Challenged Sailors, he had a chance to share that passion and love with people who might not necessarily have had the opportunity to feel the wind on and salt spray on their face.

He was committed to the mission of this fantastic organization. Maybe sometimes a bit too passionate. I don’t think that man could work on a project without dropping a flurry of f-bombs.

Most of you know the Bill of now – a retired machinist who could fix just about anything. I wanted to share with you about his life on the water. Dad lived on Laneki Beach for several years in his youth. He spent his days on the beach, in the water, and climbing the hills behind his house. Here he fell in love with the Polynesian culture and the water.

William Gross

My grandparents and dad returned to St. Louis, MO in the early-mid 60s where dad finished school. He then moved to San Diego in 1970. Here he rekindled his relationship with the sea, taking a job as a commercial diver and sailing on the weekends.

For 11 years, he was on or in the water as much as he possibly could be. Sailing the bay, Southern California, and Northern Baja coasts. He was a spear fisherman who would joke that he was definitely part of the problem that led to the ban on abalone fishing.

After two kids, my mom and dad decided to move back to St. Louis to raise the kids around family. He spent 13 years away from the ocean, but we were never far from water. We boated on lakes and rivers every summer. Dad went cave diving and spelunking. He is even attributed to the discovery of a massive cave in Jefferson County, MO. He and one other were the first humans to ever step on that ground.

My family returned to San Diego in 1994 and one of the first things we did was go sailing. Us three kids were hooked. In the early 2000s dad, me, and my siblings joined Harbor Island Sailing Club. Together we would sail whenever we had the chance. Dad instilled that passion for sailing and love of the ocean into his kids.

I got it the worst and can recall hour of conversations with my dad talking of sailing the world. We would pull out maps to look at all the places we wanted to go. The places we wanted to dive. It was always the South Pacific and always we were going to go by sailboat. I grew up hearing about the South Pacific and the Polynesian culture, yet another fascination my dad instilled in me.

When my life turned sideways in 2016, and I learned the hard way that tomorrow isn’t promised, my dad was an important key to convincing my husband to get rid of everything we owned, buy a sailboat, and sail the world. All three of us moved to Plan B on November 1, 2019. But like all the best sailing plans they went astray. It kept turning into “next year” and here we are, almost four years later.

But Dad took every opportunity to sail, so when the call came to crew on a sailboat from Mexico back to San Diego, he took it. No one could have stopped him. There are plenty of ‘what ifs’ and of course the ultimate question of what happened. We will probably never have the answer to that question. However, me and my family take solace in the fact that dad went out doing what he loved and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

SEA-FEVER
by John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

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Big Pimpin’

Ronstan’s new Orbit Winch makes easing sheets and halyards a lot easier

Winches for operating sails have been around for roughly 50 to 60 years, and they still look more or less the same. Even technically, winches operate basically the same way they did when Grandpa was in his prime. So what’s the big deal, when Ronstan now launches their new Orbit Winch?

‘Well, a lot of things’, says Thomas Galster, content manager at Ronstan. ‘More than anything, for most of our customers it’s the QuickTrim feature. Every sailor knows the endless procedure of making minor trim changes. Especially with jib sheets, but it could be a halyard or basically any trim line. When the line needs to be tightened, it’s easy enough – just take a turn or two on the winch handle.

But easing is a bit more time-consuming: You need to remove the handle, take the line off the top, ease the line and then put everything back. In most styles of sailing this has to be done with short intervals. So making that part easier would make a real difference. And this is exactly what we have done with the new Orbit Winch: All you have to do is use one hand to rotate the self-tailing top, and now you can just ease the line out as needed with your other hand. You don’t have to take the handle off or even remove the line from the jaws.’

More here.

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Far be it from us to insinuate any sort of wrongdoing here, but isn’t it always suspicious when a big powerboat goes up in flames in Floriduh? The boat name is enough to call for an investigation!

A 28-metre Cheoy Lee superyacht named Self Made was destroyed in a fire at Yacht Haven Marina in Fort Lauderdale last night (12 October).

The incident was reported at 10.30pm and fire crews were met with “heavy fire”, according to a statement by the Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue service. More here.

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It had been five years and nearly 35,000 nautical miles of hard sailing—including three years in Antarctica and Chile—when we finally turned north for the Caribbean. We were ready for a change and the chance to swim in warm, crystal clear, blue waters again, and it was time to get Zephyros, our 47-foot Boréal, in for a tune-up at a proper yard.

Trinidad’s reputation for boat work made it an obvious choice, so we reserved a spot in the Peake Yacht Services yard for the 2022 hurricane season (July-November), fully expecting our visit to be mostly work and little play—which is also part of Trinidad’s reputation. But what we found was much more, and our experience there was only enhanced by the three weeks we spent meandering Trinidad’s largely unsung neighbor, Tobago, after our work at the yard was finished.

We left for Chaguaramas, Trinidad, from Mount Hartman Bay, one of Grenada’s popular southern bays, on August 31. We’d stopped in Grenada to get our paperwork in order and the permits for our cats to clear customs with us, which took an unexpected six weeks. The Peake yard worked with our changing and sliding arrival dates, remaining accommodating throughout the process.

Some people are nervous about this 95-nautical-mile passage because there have been pirate incidents along the route in the past. The Trinidad Coast Guard requests that boats file a float plan before transiting, and they monitor VHF 16 with a high-powered antenna and repeaters. We know of a couple of incidents when the Coast Guard has come as far as the offshore oil platforms—30 nautical miles off Trinidad’s northern coast—to tow and assist boaters having problems like malfunctioning engines or flooding. They understand that cruisers have concerns and are taking maritime safety and security seriously…

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