Going for Broke

As you’ll read in the October edition of Latitude 38 magazine (which hits the streets today), the process of prepping for October’s Baja Ha-Ha rally has been long and arduous for many new cruisers. The resurrection of Stephen Arnold’s 55-ft sloop Go For Broke is a good example. We won’t go into the whole story here, but you’ll get the idea when we tell you that after buying this bulletproof steel cruiser 18 months ago and making initial repairs, he had to abort two attempts at crossing from Hawaii to California — and the second time resulted in having to buy a new 150-hp engine!

But the most interesting thing about this boat is its backstory — which directly relates to her name: Go For Broke. Her builder, Mineo Inuzuka, who sailed her around the world mostly singlehanded, was one of many Japanese-Americans who were rounded up and held in internment camps on U.S. soil shortly after Pearl Harbor. Inuzuka and many others proved their patriotism by enlisting to fight in Europe in the U.S. 442 Battalion, whose motto became "Go for broke." The boat came about many years later because Inuzuka and friends had made a pact that if they got out of that war alive they would build a boat and sail around the world. Sadly, by the time the boat was built — largely due to Inuzuka’s later service in Korea and Vietnam — the rest of would-be crewmen were either too ill to go, or dead. Read the rest of the story in the magazine (which will also be available as a free downloadable eBook or PDF later today from our site.)