Hey Charlie,

...than the one I had for my recent trip down to Antigua...

That old guy at the helm is the one who taught me to sail, I started out crewing on my big brother's sneakbox on Barnegat Bay... I thought it might be handy having an ex-American Airlines 757 Captain along, in case I had any trouble finding Antigua... Not to mention, he's a pretty good cook...

The young stud is his oldest son Art, who managed to fit this delivery in between his summer gig of fighting forest fires out in California, and his winter job on the ski patrol at Mammoth Mountain... He's a fantastic sailor, sails his Hobie 16 on Tahoe and any other lake he can find in the Sierras, and this was his first long offshore trip. He did the heavy lifting, grinding, was our onboard EMT, and faithfully sounded the alarm whenever Bud and I started getting carried away about the Good Old Days, and sounding like a couple of Grumpy Old Men...

This was the start of our second night out of Hampton, we were into the Gulf Stream, riding it east... Very fortuitous timing, we enjoyed perfect weather, sailing, and a full moon for the first few days of that leg, but this night was probably the best...

A few of you may recall the story I wrote for CW years ago, about a winter cruise to Maine... Well, I still have most of the rungs from my father' s rope ladder left, and one got brought along for this trip... Art had the honor of tossing it into the Stream, I like to imagine it will wind up in Ireland, or some equally beautiful shore across the ocean my dad once crossed on a troopship, almost 70 years ago...

This last was a fantastic trip, all three of us felt blessed the timing of it was so perfect, and we had the opportunity... A wonderful boat, I've got to rate Bob Perry's Valiant 42 as one of the finest offshore boats I have ever had the pleasure to sail, what a sweet ride...

Nice pic, Charlie - hope you have a great winter down there, keep us posted...

best regards,

Jon