Childproofing

Mario is the typical 2 year old explorer. And he's trying out his independence all the time, "no I'll do it by myself!" Aya is still pretty much attached to me in the ergo baby carrier or in her carseat so we're not worried about her aboard, yet. So we bought netting and have been scouring the web on how to put it up best but have yet to find a good solution for all our openings. The instructions on sailrite are pretty good but they suggest using wire ties to hang the netting onto the lifelines. We are not that fond of that but like this method better:

We just have to figure out how they did this so beautifully.

Then there's this problem:

It's hard to see in the picture here but that bench is not flush with the cockpit. One slip and a little squirmy toddler child is in the water below. Mario is all about getting up there himself. We've written to the Seawind owners listserve but we get the feeling that the group is made up of older couples or younger couples without kids. Nobody has any ideas for us. We are thinking of putting up netting from the stanchion on the aft gate to the pole on the crossbeam but it's still not the most secure solution. We'll have to play around with a few things. The problem is where to get the time to do all this?

Last time we went to the boat (which is like an 8 min drive from our place thankfully), we got zero done. I think we measured the lifelines and cleaned out one drawer. Both kids were having meltdowns and hands were all in our faces and pleas to be held were yelled out. We were so tired. Then our poor old dog fell into the water trying to jump off the boat and onto the dock and that made Mario cry even louder.

Don't let that cute face fool ya-he'll take off running after a squirrel and turn around and give you a doggy finger as you scream at him to come back.

Bruce is not as nimble as he once was. He used to roam the streets of Bayamon and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Yep. We brought that old brown dog mutt all the way back from Puerto Rico with us. He's straight up gangsta dog. He used to knock over trash cans with random packs of dogs looking for crap to munch on. We saw his old sad butt do it. And he was quick. He would dodge all the neighbors yelling "coño" as they sprayed him with a hose to stay out of their yards. Why would he take in "El Taliban" as he was once nicknamed by those who watched him? Because we're stupid and suckers for rascal dogs that are about to be put in the pound. So the childproofing will also double for dogproofing.

Anyways...others told us that we should concentrate on getting the harness and tether first. We'll do that too of course but dang are they expensive. $70 for just the harness and another $70 for the dang tether?! Sheesh.

I can see clearly now (almost)

So flitz polish works on lexan! The windows are not perfectly restored but it'll work for now. Two people we really trusted and really know about boats had told us that our windows needed to be replaced and that the lexan couldn't be buffed because they were too sensitive. Wrong. The lesson we learned: don't blindly trust people who sound too confident. They certainly can be buffed and they look freakin' amazing compared to this:

We first cleaned the windows with water, dried them with a microfiber cloth, then applied the flitz polish, and finally buffed them out with a buffing machine-- again with microfiber. The results are amazing. We will go over them a few more times because we noticed with each round of buffing, the windows get clearer.

Before -- hazy window. Notice you can barely see the boat next to us

Polishing windows with Flitz on a microfiber cloth

After--now you can see that boat a few slips over! And yeah, I took those hideous curtains off

E still wants to take the plexiglass off above the helm. They just don't get clear enough. I think I'm leaning that way now. He never liked the idea of having to look through two pieces of glass (plexiglass, then front salon window) to see forward.

The port side plexiglass is in worse shape than the starboard side. The lexan in the salon is ok but this glass distorts the view if you're looking sideways. Looking straight ahead is much better.

We're going over them again today.

And we were able to get so much done today because someone took a long nap below:

Flitzing works!

Before - cloudy window

After--I buffed just a tiny section on the left and you can already see the difference

Tomorrow is the real test--the lexan windows.

Flitz it

Ok--so we got a great recommendation to try Flitz (a high end polish that can be used on lots of different surfaces from mirrors to plastics to lexan) on our windows (thanks to Ted, a sailor from my long lost anthro department who lives aboard his boat with his fam). I stopped by West Marine today and picked it up. I am super optimistic. I've been reading about it on all kinds of forums and people swear by the stuff.

I have two playdates scheduled for tomorrow for Mario with his best buds that he hasn't seen in months so not sure if I can make it over to the boat to do this but am dying to see it work. This could save us some major boat bucks.

The former owners added the glass above the helm. I'm assuming they did it to keep the boat warmer. Other Seawinds don't have that there...it's just a canvas or clear plastic that can be rolled up. I like the idea of it being there and can see why they added it--especially when it's cold out. But it's a pain when fogged up so badly.

Crossing my fingers this works. E and our buddy Zen (and sailor extraordinaire!) went out for a sail this afternoon for several hours and had a great time. He took some great photos and sent them our way.

You can see the plexiglass above the helm here--it looks clearer here than it actually is-you have to look through here, then through the front salon windows which are really bad. It's like sailing blind. Terrible. Crossing my fingers the flitz works. E wants to eventually remove this piece but I'd like to keep it. We'll see...

Sailing while Black

Last weekend we went out for a sail with Ken, a boat delivery captain who helped us in the boat buying process, but there was only 4 knots of wind or so (although the forecast called for 10 knots.) So we motored around looking for wind but all the sailboats as far as we could see were all perfectly vertical. We went back to the marina to practice some docking with both engines and moving around in tight corners.

That was actually helpful. I'm pretty confident I can take Oli Kai to the fueling dock and turn her around those fingers pretty easily by myself. Gotta love the twin engines.

Oh and I saw a brotha! But he looked like he was staff working because he had on some crisp white shirt with an official looking logo. Oh, and he was cleaning fenders on several different boats. He was the first black person I've seen in our marina. I haven't seen any others sailing around here. And certainly not any black women sailors. I've heard they're out there. I've just never met them. Well, I take that back. My friend Aina and her partner are pretty new sailors and plan to circumnavigate one day. They've moved up in their sailing certifications and can charter the big boats now. They live on the east coast. But that's it. I don't personally know any others and know only a handful of black men sailors.

When I went to school back east, I was floored by the rich black folks I met. Having come from Texas and having gone to public school all my life until college, I had never met black folks with money. I'm talkin' "dad and I used to sail on our yacht on the weekends" money. I busted out laughing so hard when one of my black guy friends told me that. I thought he was being stupid. And then I realized he was like a Bill Cosby kind of black man. It blew my mind. Until I went to college, I never personally knew any black folks who played any sports like golf or lacrosse. Even soccer was a "white sport," at least for girls. When my high school track coach decided he was going to start up the first girls' soccer team our mostly black school had ever had, he assembled all of us athletes from track, basketball, and volleyball and taught us from scratch. And hells yeah, we kicked butt too. Sailing, well, that was completely off my radar as a sport or hobby. To me, that meant you had to have mucho dinero and at that time I equated mucho dinero with whiteness. But having spent time in Atlanta, DC, and now the bay area as an adult--I see that that equation is with much fault. And I now understand that you don't have to have a lot of money to be a sailor or enjoy it as a sport (that is, if you keep a watch on the "boat bucks".) I can't help but crack up when I see this picture that OCSC uses on their website. I'm like um, where did that black woman come from? Is that me that they photoshoped? Just kidding. I know there's one very cool black woman who works there but I have never seen any others there.

Wow, a black woman sailor?! She looks like she's laughing nervously though. She's like, " honey, don't you dare let go of this helm or I'll go oops upside ya' head"

As we passed other boaters, they waved and nodded the friendly sailor nod but addressed their questions about our boat toward Ken. I think they assumed that because of his race and age, he was the boat owner. It probably would have been different if he weren't there. And E and I do look quite young for our age. His patients are always suspect when they walk into his office and some ask him his age up front. We are both over 35 and still get carded! Yay for Okinawan/black genes and those Cuban genes are pretty awesome too. But boo because we also get questioned and patronized more often than we should if we looked our age. Our granola-ish, clothing probably doesn't help much either.

From my very brief time in marinas and the boating world there appears to be the yachtie types--those with those hideously fugly dock shoes and ultra-preppy New England-ish shirts and sweaters neatly pressed and tucked into their creased pants. And there's the boater who wears what doesn't smell too rankish for a sail and has second hand almost everything yet also has the brilliant, top of the line technical gear. E fits into category 2 for sure. I fit into a 3rd category. The sailor who still has no idea what she is doing and therefore is not sure what works for sailing. I show up in a mish mash of clothes, some cute and totally impractical along with technical stuff fit for say, snowboarding. (It's waterproof right? Can't that stuff cross-over?) I'll figure it out soon enough I hope.

Anywho...My real issue for this post is that I would hate to be questioned--no interrogated- as weather Oli Kai were my boat just because of assumptions and stereotypes. My brother gets regularly stopped for DWB--"driving while black." The cops consistently profile and say, "we were just checking..." It's exhausting. The regulars on our finger have seen us enough times to know who we are but what about others who don't come to the marina often? I would hate to get that suspicious look when boarding my own boat. I worry about being "henry louis gated"-- yes, even in the bay area. I'm hoping that the boating crowd is more open minded.

Yes, yes, yes. I'm sensitive to this. Just last year, right here in Oakland near Piedmont Ave., an older white woman stopped me while I was with my son next to me and as I was putting a package together at the post office and Mario was at my side. She asked, "are you allowed to run personal errands while on duty." It took me a good minute to figure out what the heck she was talking about. And then it clicked. She thought I was the nanny and Ms. Daisy was policing. Somehow I managed to reply that Mario was my son (his skin color is WAY lighter than mine) and she looked us over both pretty good and left. I am still mad about that. The nerve--even if I had been the nanny geez.... Policing to keep folks in their place and by folks you know what I mean here. I get mad because I feel that awful history running through my blood and I'm unable to control how I'm being hailed/interpellated. Eduardo is Cubano. But he's like the Cameron Diaz kinda Cuban so he doesn't get the profiling thing. If anyone is suspicious of him it's when he totally grunges out and they profile based on stereotypes of lower class folks.

Anyway-- I just came across this interesting article about South Africa's racing team (Team Shosholoza) in which "half the crew are black." The coach says, "And it's not very often you see black people sailing on boats, and half our crew are black. It makes people stop and look. And our team loves the recognition."

That's cool. A friend of mine used to work on tugboats and other large vessels and said that the crew of those kinds of ships are always pretty diverse but it's the opposite in the sailing world. It's about work vs. leisure/recreation.

Well, when we make our first journey anywhere far enough to be significant, I'm giving ourselves an accolade to be reckoned with: "First black/Japanese/Cuban family to make it to ____." We haven't really met any other latino sailors--that is latino sailors who don't look like the telenovela stars and have 3 maids. We'll see what it's like out there when we really start to immerse ourselves in this world.

Choosing the Seawind 1000

Not our boat (from the seawind website but this is what it'll look like once our windows are fixed)

This boat is a great fit for us and for our cruise in a couple of years to the Sea of Cortez. I wanted something airy and easy to single hand especially since one of us might need to be completely focused on the kiddos. E wanted something that could take us further away from the coast and feel safe if we want to eventually go further. We'll be able to do this with the transom extensions we'll inevitably get.

I'm highlighting some excerpts from an interview (on the official Seawind website) with the designer and builder of this boat Richard Ward. These three major points really speak to us and our approach to sailing/cruising.

Patio love: We love lanais/patios, balconies with hammocks, gardens with big cushy reading chairs tucked under a shady, protective tree. . . Ward designed the boat with folks like us in mind,

"When you go sailing, you go to enjoy the water and the outdoors. But, this is not to say you want to be exposed to the elements. What you want is the feeling of being outdoors without the harshness.

The semi-bridgedeck design of the SW1000 achieves this aim. The central cockpit flows straight out to the aft deck where the business end of the sailing is done. Everyone on deck has the feeling of being together and in close contact. For example, someone can be seated in the central saloon area and be totally out of the weather. They can be reading or just relaxing and yet are still in direct communication with whoever is sailing the boat. With 360 degree visibility, they know exactly where they are going and what is happening around them.

We like to party: Ok, well not as much with the kiddos 'cause we're so dang tired all the time. Although E will be a hermit if I let him, he doesn't mind my saner friends hanging (he's a psychiatrist so he spends all day long talking to people in a poor healthcare system that is more interested in moving a million folks through at a profit than offering them real therapy--the last thing he wants to do is be around more folks sometimes). I am always up for some good company, esp creative thinkers and people who are in tune with kids. I wanted a boat where we could potentially fit a bunch of our friends in the cockpit, listen to some good music, eat some good food, drink some good wine, and sail over to let's say The Ramp in San Fran, get our salsa on and then sail back in the evening or stick around there or on a mooring near Angel Island overnight with the kids tucked away safely in a berth below. And I'm all about going with other families with kids so they can entertain each other. This open salon/cockpit allows us to get a bunch of folks on comfortably.

"This also makes the Seawind 1000 a great entertainer. With the cockpit/saloon , aft deck and Targa bar seating, up to 20 people can sit around at anchor and party.

The aft seating with the central barbeque is a wonderful feature that makes cruising on the Seawind 1000 that much more enjoyable. With the aft deck easily accessible from the transom steps, this whole area becomes the focal point for everyone playing or swimming off the boat at anchor.

Under sail, the party can continue virtually unhindered. With all sail controls coming back to the twin helms, the boat can be sailed by the skipper & the rest can party on. "

Galley (from seawind website but this is what ours will look like once cleaned)

Sturdy and comfy -- although E still likes the ideas of dagger boards on cats (points better) he likes that the Seawind still sails well. I mean we are super new owners so we'll have to test this out more but we're not racing, adrenaline junkie types. For example, we backpack slowly. The whole reason for us to be roughing it with a backpack for miles and miles on foot is to try to be in better sync with non man-made things, to slow down and defog our over-stimulated vision of the world. Some folks we know backpack in a hurry. They challenge themselves to cover the most miles in a ridiculous amount of time -- rushing up a mountain, plotting loops across treacherous terrain without little time to take in their surroundings around their campsites. I don't get that. I don't find that rush appealing. We buy sturdy equipment to take us to where we need to go and sit for an extended period, far away from other folks. Our tent and other backpacking gear is small, lightweight, and has no frills but is top of the line in terms of sturdiness and practicality. We hope this boat will be this way too. It's way nicer than anything we thought we were going to get to be honest (not as classy as the hans christian type sailboats) but it's comfy and sturdy for our family. The kids can have one hull, the dog will probably stay far from them, and we can have our own semi-peaceful hull (although we currently still co-sleep like little sardines in the bed which we hate and love, by the time we cast off that will be an old habit). Ward has this to say about it's keels:

"The practical advantages of skeg keels are significant. They are strong and able to withstand the inevitable grounding without major damage. The boat can be dried out on the keels at low tide for maintenance. The keels give protection to the rudders - protection from grounding but also from anything else in the water such as crab pots or floating timber.

and

Comfy:

Our profile of a Seawind 1000 owner is a person who loves his or her sailing but also values a high level of safety and family comforts. It is also a person who wants a boat high in quality in terms of construction, style and finish so that it represents a good investment."

Now down to the gritty gritty

Our boat is a lil' funky. The previous owners were liveaboards and so they used every nook and cranny as liveaboards must. They didn't do such a good job cleaning it before they put it on the market. It's down right dirty. And I know that it's nearly impossible to keep outside elements from collecting inside boats but there's just grittiness everywhere, especially in the kitchen. The drawers are gross, the floors are worse...everything needs a good scrubbing, several times.

One person suggested we hire someone to do the initial cleaning and then we just maintain it afterwards. He said it would cost us nearly $1,000 or more. Say whaaaa? I thought he was joking. But no. He could be wrong but we'll do it all ourselves even if it's cheaper. The boat is not that big. I just don't know what I can use. We tend not to use the harsh chemical stuff but will my green cleaning products cut it? I'll have to write to some cruising families and ask.

And yes, because I'm a former Berkeley-ite, I'll have to run through the boat with my burning sage a few times. I might remove the hula girl (leftover from former owners) and replace it with an Okinawan shisa-just 'cause. We have one in our genkan. I'll probably transplant that one to the boat. That's the extent of my spiritual boat cleansing. E's catholic parents want us to get the boat blessed by a priest and put some saint figurine (forgot which one already) aboard but that ain't happening. They still think his atheism is a phase. They tolerate my agnosticism and think I'll come to my senses some day and will start seeing the Virgin Mary in obscure places.