A 16 for the Great Loop!

[crazycarl]

I was just reading a tidbit on the Richlands Sailboat site about a Compac 16 from Montana they refurbished so the owner can sail the Great Loop with it.  That would be quite the trip.  I would love to do it in our 19.  When we were down in Oriental looking for property in 2015, we missed by one week, a sailor from Peoria, IL (about 2 hours south from we were living at the time) who was doing the loop in his Compac 16.  The article stated it took him 4 months to sail/motor from Peoria to Oriental.

Maybe this sailor is a member here and will post about the journey, or write articles for Small Craft Advisor.   

[moonlight]

I bought my Islander 36 at 23yo after graduating from college.  Lived aboard 10 years, then swallowed the anchor, married, mortgaged, moved ashore, began the family life (20 years ago this year).  Years 7-10 saw me running a sailing school, ComPac dealership, and still working for Texaco (thus the name, Moonlight Marine).

My folks marriage dissolved about year 10 of my liveaboard, as I was swallowing the anchor.  My Dad wound up taking only the clothes on his back, and (blaming his snot nosed kid who walked out 10 years earlier, while reading the instructions for the LORAN, to move said Islander 36 from Charleston to Norfolk (just keep the land to port Dad, what else need I know?)) purchased a Grand Banks 42.

He did the Loop 2007-8, 2011-12, 2015-16. May to May.  That placed he, and his new wife, in New Orleans each time for a month around Christmas.  He passed away this past February, 5 weeks after our last boat trip together up past the Norfolk Naval Base with my wife, I, and our 5 kids.  We talked on that trip about whether it was time to retire from boating, or if the allure of one more trip was keeping him going.  Regardless, I'm glad we got underway together, and miss him terribly.

I don't know if it was Fatty Goodlander, or Lyn & Larry Pardey, or both: but GO NOW, and GO WITH WHAT YOU'VE GOT.  Trip planning will consume a lifetime, so in the immortal words of Captain Ron, "If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there ...".  Get going.  I've a new client, purchased a Tanzer 8.5 that's 5 years older than she is (1981 hull).  She did the kid thing early, at 18, 20.  Now they're 16, 18; and she's bought a boat.  Without a survey.  Having now learned how to properly change the racor filters, and why we should run new engine control cables up the binnacle, she's still got that sparkle in her eye and looks wistfully at the horizon.  I hope she stays long enough to see her youngest graduate high school.  But I've seen this infection in folks before ... and the siren's song is hard to resist.  (I lent her a copy of Captain Ron to study this weekend, we begin her sailing lessons on the 17th after finalizing the binnacle/steering pedestal rebuild).