West Wight Potter Owners Home Port _______________________________________________________________________________________________ |
Santa Cruz to Monterey
Two West Wight Potters Cross Monterey Bay in 1979
by Harry Gordon h.gordon@comcast.net
I wrote the following account for the Potter Yachters club newsletter after De Marsh and I had
completed what was probably the first Potter passage across Monterey Bay. I had not sailed on
Monterey Bay at all previously, and the passage was a stretch for me at my level of experience at the
time.
I anticipated an all-day sail to cover the 20+ nautical miles straight across from Santa Cruz to
Monterey, so De and I arranged for our wives, Sandy (accompanied by my daughter, Jill) and
Sydney, to drive the cars and boat trailers on to Monterey, which was complicated somewhat
because of the difficulty of finding gas for the cars. It was at the height of the fuel crisis. Stations that
still had fuel and remained open had long lines of cars waiting to gas up, and gasoline could be bought
only on odd or even numbered dates, depending on your license plate number.
I monitored the weather reports carefully for a couple of weeks prior to the scheduled trip in order to
know what kind of conditions to expect, but the actual winds encountered were not as the reports had
led me to expect. We began with a light following wind after departing the Santa Cruz harbor, but the
wind veered around and was increasingly on our nose the last half of the crossing.
Reading my account 20 years later, I could nitpick a few of my observations (I still don't really know if
the jellyfish were Portuguese Men of War) but I have not edited anything because the account
accurately reflects my feelings and observations at the time.
Manatee was a gunter-rigged Potter in its original configuration with a 50 sq ft mainsail and 22 sq ft jib
plus a genoa to be used in lighter air. There was no reefing capability. De's later aluminum-sparred
Ipo, had the same size small main, but De had rigged a larger masthead jib. Both boats were also
powered by 3 hp Seagull outboards, which were standard issue on the early Potters and used a 10:1
fuel to oil mixture.
My crew was Mike O'Neil, a fellow tech editor from my office at Ford Aerospace. Mike had just
learned to sail at Peninsula Sailing School, but he had been well taught. De's crew was Stan Butler,
who usually sailed his own Potter.
To read the story click here.
Two West Wight Potters Cross Monterey Bay in 1979
by Harry Gordon h.gordon@comcast.net
I wrote the following account for the Potter Yachters club newsletter after De Marsh and I had
completed what was probably the first Potter passage across Monterey Bay. I had not sailed on
Monterey Bay at all previously, and the passage was a stretch for me at my level of experience at the
time.
I anticipated an all-day sail to cover the 20+ nautical miles straight across from Santa Cruz to
Monterey, so De and I arranged for our wives, Sandy (accompanied by my daughter, Jill) and
Sydney, to drive the cars and boat trailers on to Monterey, which was complicated somewhat
because of the difficulty of finding gas for the cars. It was at the height of the fuel crisis. Stations that
still had fuel and remained open had long lines of cars waiting to gas up, and gasoline could be bought
only on odd or even numbered dates, depending on your license plate number.
I monitored the weather reports carefully for a couple of weeks prior to the scheduled trip in order to
know what kind of conditions to expect, but the actual winds encountered were not as the reports had
led me to expect. We began with a light following wind after departing the Santa Cruz harbor, but the
wind veered around and was increasingly on our nose the last half of the crossing.
Reading my account 20 years later, I could nitpick a few of my observations (I still don't really know if
the jellyfish were Portuguese Men of War) but I have not edited anything because the account
accurately reflects my feelings and observations at the time.
Manatee was a gunter-rigged Potter in its original configuration with a 50 sq ft mainsail and 22 sq ft jib
plus a genoa to be used in lighter air. There was no reefing capability. De's later aluminum-sparred
Ipo, had the same size small main, but De had rigged a larger masthead jib. Both boats were also
powered by 3 hp Seagull outboards, which were standard issue on the early Potters and used a 10:1
fuel to oil mixture.
My crew was Mike O'Neil, a fellow tech editor from my office at Ford Aerospace. Mike had just
learned to sail at Peninsula Sailing School, but he had been well taught. De's crew was Stan Butler,
who usually sailed his own Potter.
To read the story click here.
