The Perfect Year

ET is ready! Crew awards Tony with Most Prepared PacCup Award.

We start Wednesday at 2:15pm, watch our ET blog, we'll update it when we can spare the juice ... http://www.sailblogs.com/member/2012paccupet/

Hmmm ... why THIS WEEK? I'm about to leave for a 2070 mile trip across the Pacific Ocean and the Sherry Ann is shipwrecked. @ the last PacCup, a few days before I left on the Recidivist delivery (Custom Schumacher 39) "Back-Cup", my Mom and Dad were both admitted to the hospital. They hadn't spoken in years yet both ended up @ the St. Luke's in New Bedford for unrelated reasons. OK, chalk that one up to coincidence and bad timing.

There were three Lobster boats named after my brother, sister and I. The "Sherry Ann" was the newest ... at the time, a 46' offshore Aluminum Lobster boat was cutting edge and she was one of her kind. It's rumored that the man at the helm fell asleep. My take-away ... I'm glad we're headed out with 2-up, 4 total on E.T. (Eric's Tuition, Antrim 27). I'm confident that one of us will be awake at all times! If it blows, yeah... you can count on all of us being up ... including the spinnaker ... flyin' to Kaneohe!

Sherry Ann Shipwrecked -> http://www.mvgazette.com/article.php?35996
PacCup 2012 -> http://pacificcup.org/race2012

During one particular downwind kite reach, all 7 of the crew got remarkably quiet ... (Furthur was the only boat to set and we were hauling ass) ... when Dan yells out, "This is SICK !! ". We busted up laughing for about 20 seconds, then returned to serious racing. Pretty much sums up the weekend.

No, I'm not retired but I've stopped working 60 hours a week -- life's too short. Last year, my Mom passed away after a five year battle with Alzheimer's. Over and above how sad that was, it brought many financial responsibilities and a level of stress that nearly killed me. On the flip side, I sailed over 6500 ocean miles with a smile on my face. Last year, I started following a dream of sailing adventures, albeit in a different format than I had always imagined. This year, in two weeks (and the incentive to start this blog) is the 2012 PacCup Adventure -- a race from San Francisco to Kaneohe. The perfect year coming up ...