07.06.07
Posted in Society, Sailing
at 8:01 am
by Dave Badtke
While my wife and I sail our small Corsair 750 Sprint, Dulcinea, on the Carquinez Straits and up the Napa River and out onto the various Bays that spread out to the east and west, I dream of sailing the open oceans. I get all the sailing magazines. I relish heavy weather stories and tales of sailing to distant islands that appear like slivers of dark sky floating on the
horizon. I read about the performance of new sailboats. I chart courses on Google Earth. And I dream of handling sails on some small boat that wouldn’t be overpowering, say a Hallberg-Rassy 342, in the middle of the South Pacific, heading south toward the Marquises or west toward Hawaii and Japan. In my future I visualize the vast open ocean where there’s nothing except our small boat, me, my wife, and the rolling waves and wind.
So I’m not sure I’m ready for the latest cruise innovation on the world’s ugliest boat that I read about today in the New York Times. Four Seasons is offering this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase, for a mere $3.8 million, an 800 square-foot condo on a ship that forever sails, though it’s expected that the ship will be in port some 250 days each year. So really it’s a huge hotel (boatel?) stuck in a marina most of the time.
Can you imagine being on this monstrosity day after day, night after night, on this oceanship without a tree except those in pots, with others like you who have spent so much for so little and the privilege of being so close to others just like you?
If you feel that 800 square feet is a bit cramped — to put this in perspective, the Halberg-Rassy 342 is less than 300 square feet — residences as large as 7,000 square feet are also available, but I hesitate to ask the price — simple math would put it at about $33 mill — as I search my pants’ pockets for spare change.
Four Seasons Ocean Residences
WHAT Residential ocean liner.
WHERE Launching initially from London.
AMENITIES A spa and concierge service, among others.
PRICES Residences starting at $3.8 million.
STATUS Sales began recently, and the ship is scheduled to begin service in 2010.
DEVELOPER BV International Ocean Holdings.
CONTACT 
(877) 507-3393
or www.oceanresidences.com.
DETAILS The Four Seasons — a 719-foot, 13-deck ship operated by the hotel company that will be filled entirely with residences — will begin construction next spring in Helsinki, Finland. Its 112 residences are described as nothing like standard cruise ship cabins. The one- to four-bedroom units, sold in whole ownership, will range from 800 to more than 7,000 square feet and will have full-length windows, walk-in closets, terraces and full-size kitchens. Each residence will be credited $12,000 a year for food, drinks and spa services. Amenities, other than the spa, will include a fitness center, a pool, a shopping promenade, four restaurants, a specialty food market, a wine cellar, a business center, putting greens and a driving range. Sailboats and motorized water scooters will be launched from the ship’s marina area, which will also be used for diving trips and shuttles to shore. Round-the-clock concierge service will be available to help arrange on-shore activities, and in-room dining will be offered. Plans call for the ship initially to follow a two-year fixed itinerary that will take it to Antarctica, the Amazon and the 2012 Olympics in London. During that time, it is expected that the ship will spend an average of 250 days a year in port.
Permalink
06.10.07
Posted in Sailing, Family
at 5:31 pm
by Dave Badtke
Feeling more confident than we probably should have, since Dulcinea, our Corsair 750, sometimes seems more like a sports car than a sailboat, we decided to sail Saturday to San Francisco and beyond. Since we’ve been able to pick Bay Area spots in the past and get there and back without difficulty, why should yesterday have been any different from any other day if the tides were going our way? That’s simple: the winds.
After tacking way out on San Pablo Bay near the entrance to the Petaluma channel, hoping the winds would become westerly as they usually do — I was imagining a beam reach at 15+ knots straight south to San Francisco — we found ourselves instead beating against a strong southerly as we headed toward the Richmond Bridge. And that got tiring, so we changed our minds and headed for San Rafael.
The tide was ebbing and almost at slack when we entered the long, narrow channel where the
depth at times was no more than 3.5 feet, which isn’t a problem for us if we remember to pull up the center board and rudder. We motored back into the channel for a couple miles and tied up at the Seafood Peddlers restaurant, where the food was quite good, and it’s a terrific location.
Sailing back with our asymmetrical spinnaker set, I made a movie. We left Glen Cove at 11:40 and were back by about 6:40, with a couple hours for lunch, a total of about 2 1/2 hours in each direction, which is proving to be fairly standard if the winds are reasonable. The rumb line distance is about 18 miles, which we took on the return trip, but going out we sailed more like 22 miles, so our average speed was about 7 knots, which seems about right since we sat for awhile with no wind leaving San Rafael. Regardless, with Dulcinea if there’s any wind at all, we seem to be sailing at 5+ knots, and that’s a lot of fun.
Permalink
05.24.07
Posted in Sailing, Family
at 9:20 pm
by Dave Badtke
Last Monday we took Dulcinea out on San Pablo Bay, heading towards China Camp. The winds started to pick up, so we heaved-to to put on our foul-weather gear, which of course meant that then the winds began to die. When we got far enough to see the Richmond bridge, we headed back on a broad reach and, because Joe and Mina were our extra crew, we tried out the asymmetrical spinnaker with Joe at the helm. As we approached the Carquinez Bridge, we even managed a couple gybes that weren’t half bad. All in all a slow sail, since we were more often going 5 to 6 knots rather than 10 to 12, but fun.
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05.08.07
Posted in Business, People, Places, Sailing
at 9:32 am
by Dave Badtke
One of the joys of writing for a local newspaper like the Benicia Herald is that I get to sit down with people for an hour or more to listen to their stories.
Well, you might say, you’re not living in New York or Los Angeles or Tokyo or London or Paris or even, for that matter, in San Francisco, where there’s a chance that around the next corner you might meet a celebrity or mover and shaker. And you’d be right that the people I meet aren’t the famous and fabulously rich and influential — they’re people who don’t feel comfortable in the spotlight and usually cringe when I pull out my camera — but they’re interesting and always surprising because like all those people you know so much about from watching too much TV or from guiltily reading tabloids while you wait in the grocery story checkout line, these people have spent their lives getting an education, developing skills, creating careers, supporting their families, having interesting experiences and serving others.
Such is the case with Elizabeth Vazquez who, along with her partner Chuck Bowen, owns Galley Cafe, a fantastic, inviting, comfortable little restaurant with a beautiful water view at Glen Cove Marina. Elizabeth was in the Army in the 70s and then recently served in Iraq. She has worked as a social worker advocate for the homeless and recently earned her paralegal degree at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. And she and Chuck, who live in a houseboat in the marina, make wonderful breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks at Galley Cafe in addition to catering special events. But for more about this you’ll need to read my Sunday Column on May 13 in the Benicia Herald.
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05.06.07
Posted in Sailing
at 11:14 pm
by Dave Badtke
We previously owned a Gemini 105M catamaran, renamed Fishcake, and were used to taking the better part of day to sail from Benicia to San Francisco. 
The boat was always under control and on a broad reach we’d get to 9 or 10 knots in twenty knots or more of wind. But when the winds died away, as they always did near Pinole Point or Point Richmond, Fishcake’s velocity made good would vanish and we’d motor.
But last year near the end of the season, yacht broker Gary Helms made it possible for us to trade Fishcake for Dulcinea, a new Corsair Sprint 750, which is a 24-foot foldable trimaran that flies across the water — five knots now seems as though we’re not moving — even in light winds.
So now we’re in the habit of going to San Francisco and back or up the Napa River and back when in the past we’d end up sleeping over at our destination and sailing back the next day. And this last weekend we went again to Angel Island, taking about three hours to get there and two and a half to get back. Dulcinea may have little space to overnight, but she’s a blast, and when it’s rough, which it always seems to get, we get soaked. This never happened in 
Fishcake, for the ride was always high and dry, but somehow we seem to be adjusting to salt spray flying everywhere and 15 knots on a beam reach, 20 knots if we dare deploy our spinnaker in a sock, but we’re not there yet.
Permalink
While my wife and I sail our small Corsair 750 Sprint, Dulcinea, on the Carquinez Straits and up the Napa River and out onto the various Bays that spread out to the east and west, I dream of sailing the open oceans. I get all the sailing magazines. I relish heavy weather stories and tales of sailing to distant islands that appear like slivers of dark sky floating on the
horizon. I read about the performance of new sailboats. I chart courses on Google Earth. And I dream of handling sails on some small boat that wouldn’t be overpowering, say a Hallberg-Rassy 342, in the middle of the South Pacific, heading south toward the Marquises or west toward Hawaii and Japan. In my future I visualize the vast open ocean where there’s nothing except our small boat, me, my wife, and the rolling waves and wind.
So I’m not sure I’m ready for the latest cruise innovation on the world’s ugliest boat that I read about today in the New York Times. Four Seasons is offering this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase, for a mere $3.8 million, an 800 square-foot condo on a ship that forever sails, though it’s expected that the ship will be in port some 250 days each year. So really it’s a huge hotel (boatel?) stuck in a marina most of the time.
