The Connection Between Three Camels, Paris and Sailing Revealed
Our story on Monday about the sailboat featuring camels and the Eiffel Tower elicited various comments from readers all trying to guess at the meaning behind the images. J.Chodzko suggested, “Caravan to Paris.” “They obviously took a camel trip to the Eiffel Tower,” Paul Tullos wrote. Bill Mittendorf asked, “Paris/Dakar race?” Or, perhaps as Milly Biller asked, “Parisian and Egyptian crew?” It turns out Milly was the closest. One of the boat’s owners, Bob Badagliacco, wrote and gave us the real story behind the unusual sail designs.
“Hello, Latitude 38 —
“I saw our boat on the main page of the website and thought I would provide the background on our sails. Our vessel is San Saggio Anthropoi and she is a 1998 Catalina 40 that I own in a partnership with three other owners, and we keep her docked at Brisbane Marina. Our partnership purchased the boat in 2008 from the boat’s original owner, who was based out of San Diego but apparently spent much of each year at anchor in the Sea of Cortez. That being said, the individuals in our partnership have changed over the years, and I am now the longest-running partner after purchasing my share in 2011.
“The three original partners renamed the vessel San Saggio Anthropoi, which means ‘Three Wise Men’ in Mandarin, Italian and Greek respectively. One of those three partners had lived and worked in China for 10 years, and the other two were Italian American and Greek American respectively, so the vessel name was intended as a representation of their new partnership, heritage and life experiences, although the ‘wise’ part is very much up for debate! 😉
“One of those original partners, Bruce Paris, who had been most responsible for teaching us all about sailing on San Francisco Bay, died suddenly and tragically in October 2019. So when we purchased new sails in 2021, we had new images installed to represent the name of the vessel (the mainsail) and to honor our former partner and friend (the jib).
“Sorry for the long-winded answer, which I normally share with new crew over a beer in one of our Sierra Point YC Beer Can Races on Tuesday evenings, but which looks like a dissertation when I write it in an email!
Fair Winds, Bob.”