The Pink Boat

Sailing, as a sport, pastime, or passion, connotates many half-baked associations and over-the-top caricatures: Larry Ellison drinking champagne out of the (his?) recently won America’s Cup; Judge Smails in yacht club attire, christening his yacht, the “Flying Wasp”; off-the-grid loners who chuck it all and commit themselves to a life of  clichéd     rugged individualism, Sterling Hayden style.  But those examples are inaccurate misunderstanding, mere caricatures.  The simple truth is that sailing is just plain fun, and there’s no better way to clear your head and feel good than to go for a sail, even if it’s just a trip around the bay, getting home in time for dinner. 

         Last weekend I had the good fortune to be able to sail the Singlehanded Sailing Society’s Vallejo 1-2 Regatta.  This is a singlehanded race about 20 miles from the Central Bay northeast to Vallejo, followed by a double-handed race back the next day.  I sailed the boat up solo, and my good friend Smith Forte took the ferry to Vallejo and joined me for the race home.

         The Singlehanded Sailing Society isn’t really a yacht club, so to speak.  There is no clubhouse, dues are cheap, and its members include everyone from accomplished sailors who have made the singlehanded trip to Hawaii, to guys like myself who are mostly noncompetitive bay sailors.  It was really cool to be rafted up at the Vallejo Yacht Club Saturday afternoon and see those boats I’d read about making the Singlehanded Transpac, their skippers undistinguishable from the rest of us, everyone a bit sunburnt and looking satisfied after a day of great sailing.

         The boat that stood out to me during the weekend wasn’t one of the Hawaii veterans, however, but Tom Watson’s Darwind, also known as The Pink Boat. Not only does Tom have the cojones to plan on executing a circumnavigation via the Southern Capes, but he is doing so in a pink-colored twenty-eight foot Pearson Triton to raise $1 million for breast cancer research. His boat logo includes the evolving man, and has the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's pink ribbons on the hull and sail.  It’s a hard boat to miss seeing during a race, and every time it came into view I was reminded of how breast cancer can touch all of us, and how fortunate we are to live in a time and place where the community recognizes that breast cancer can be beat--as well as what it takes to do the job.  Fair winds, Tom, and thanks for dedicating yourself to this cause.