Call me Ishmael...

[CaptK]

OK, not really...

My real name is Kurt, and I'm a Com-Pac sailor. I've been owned by my boat "Epiphany" for about 2 1/2 years at this point. It's been great.

Sailing history: I started being a regular sailor at age 17 or so, and have been an addict ever since. My first 15 years or so "under sail" I was a catamaran sailor and windsurfer. During that time I logged a *lot* of miles because I sailed for a living, as a ride captain and instructor. I don't know how many miles exactly, but a fairly conservative estimate would be in excess of 10,000 miles. All of that has been in close proximity to the coast, but I hope someday to double it (at least!) with offshore journeys.

I had a hiatus from being a regular sailor while living far away in Indianapolis for a couple of years, but, soon upon my return to the coast, I was back at it. I can't help myself.

It's only been since Epiphany caught my eye and lured me into her purchase that I have done a lot of sailing on monohulls. Other monohull boats I have sailed on include Catalina 25's, Columbia 7.6, Hinckleys (a 38" and a 46' or 48"), and Sea Pearls (my brother has one).

I can't think of much I enjoy more than being offshore and under sail. It's both my refuge and my cathedral, and about the only place I have ever felt "home". I'm really looking forward to a time when that's where I spend most of my life again.

Kurt

[Craig Weis]

When I was in grade school in Glenview Illinois, Dad called up Otto the harbor master at Belmont Harbor in Chicago and told him to, "...get a #*^#* diver and have him find a barge with a crain on it and #*^# go down and harvest that sunken Star Boat that I just #**#^ bought, and when you get it on the **## trailer call me up so I can come down and see my new boat. Some wood~be sailor had capsized the Star just out of the harbor [] is this possible.

Before this Dad had a 40ish something foot schooner that he and his high school buddy, Warren use to sail in the Great Lakes and the Gulf Of Mexico as kids. The two of them even built a pram in a basement but had to cut her in to two pieces to get her out! By the end of WWll, as she was commandeered by the U.S. Navy, the schooner was gunned to the bottom by a german U-boat around New York City with her U.S. Navy crew.

Any way Dad bought me a $150 Penquin that I trailed and sailed for years, while at the same time the Star went by the ways in favor of what became, one at a time, five houseboats on the Wisconsin and Illinois Rivers. Heck We even went down to New Orlenes and back one summer, stopping on the way in Vicksburg to secure a hotel room with a TV so Mom, Dad, the dog and I could watch Neil Armstrong jump around on the moon.

I picked up a position as spinnaker man on a Rhodes 19 keeled hull belonging to Warren. Warren, his son Jon, Dad and I sailled the bottom paint off that thing in Lake Michigan for years. Even raced the darn thing.

Well now after grabbing rides on other peoples boats, even the unused cup contender, Nefertiti in Marblehead, in the great state of Mass-of-two-shits for a 33 hour non-stop balls out 'flight'. I forget how many miles. Maybe 500? I think I was 12 years old? I have my own sailboat again. "And I loves to sail".  skip

And that's about all the sailing legs I have.