If you want to know how to do something the right way on a sailboat.....ask Captain Robert Svoboda. I have known Robert (whom I call Rob) for about 8 years, Rob was the brother of one of my neighbors in Rancho San Diego, he use to come over to Petr's house to do little projects for his boat and I would go over and talk (bug) him while he worked, I always marveled it how detail oriented he was, Rob and his then girlfriend Katrina lived on their boat on a mooring ball in Coronado. I moved and didn't talk to Rob again until last year right after I bought Si Bon, Robert and Katrina are now married and have a 3 year old son, Katrina is about 7-8 months pregnant with their second son and they still live on their boat on the mooring ball. Robert and I have struck up a friendship over the past year and he has taught me so many thing about life on a sailboat, how to do things and how NOT to do things, sometimes Rob will tell me something I should or should not do and I'll think to myself...."ohhh forget about that, what does he know" then somewhere down the line I find myself saying " Damn that Robert was right again". You would think I would learn to just listen to him and do whatever he says...and I am starting to. The other day I took a poke at Rob for not securing his dinghy properly.....I knew it would be one of the few if any chances I would have. This is a pic of Captain Rob (who never uses the title of Captain when addressing himself) showing me the correct way to go up the mast in a bosun's chair.....I think I will follow ALL of his advice on this one.
Robert has a charter sailing business....if you ever want to charter a sailboat in San Diego I would highly recommend Captain Robert Svoboda.
http://www.sailawaysandiego.com/