Help This Sailor Circumnavigate

If you could help the lovely young cruiser in the above photo pursue her dream of sailing around the world, and it wouldn’t cost you a cent or take more effort than a few clicks of a computer mouse, would you do it? We sure hope so.

The lovely young woman in the photo is 26-year-old Elizabeth Ostrander, who came to San Francisco two years ago from the east coast of Florida to learn how to sail and hopefully to meet a man who shared her dream of sailing around the world. It didn’t take long before she met and fell in love with Erik Ostrander, who is the swashbuckling 37-year-old owner of the Pier 39-based San Francisco Sailing Company, the San Francisco Sailing School and The City Yacht Club.

Erik, who is a most interesting character you’ll learn more about in Latitude 38, fell in love with Elizabeth, but not just because she’s a stone cold gorgeous redhead who is enthusiastic about sailing and “wants to be a playful sex bomb for life."

“When you captain a charter boat on San Francisco Bay,” reports Erik, “a lot of female customers fall for you. For one thing, their life is in your hands, and women love men who protect them. Plus, I would tell every group, ‘For safety’s sake you must do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it.’ Then I would look at the girls and say with a smile, ‘And I do abuse my authority.’"

After a decade of captaining the party boat, Erik decided you could actually have too much of a good thing. “So before I met Elizabeth, I wasn’t looking for a super hot young sex bomb. I was looking for a woman of about 30 who shared my core values.”

Elizabeth won Erik’s heart because of “her great personality” and because “she said all the things I wanted to hear.” What he wanted to hear is that Elizabeth wants to sail around the world, that she wants lots of kids, that she wants to be a stay-at-home mom, and that she wants to make dinner for her husband and children.

Just four months after meeting, the couple — who were both born on Pearl Harbor Day — were married on their boat in Aquatic Park. Just a few days later they started off on their honeymoon, which they hope was the start of a 3- to 5-year circumnavigation, by sailing to Hawaii aboard Journey, their Islander Freeport 41. Having sailed almost exclusively on San Francisco Bay, Erik didn’t realize that leaving San Francisco on Halloween to sail to Hawaii is not the best idea in terms of weather. The two of them had a rough passage.

After cruising to every Hawaiian island, the couple found a berth for their Islander Freeport 41 Journey at the Ala Wai for the maximum of four months, and had a fabulous time. “We used to close down the club Addiction at 4:00 a.m., then have after-parties aboard Journey, which was berthed right in front of the Chart House. If we could have stayed longer, we would have.”

But they continued on to Bora Bora and French Polynesia. You can read all about it — it was another difficult trip — in the March issue of Latitude 38.

Before sailing to Hawaii, the couple had gotten on craigslist and bought several years’ worth of Playboy magazines from the late ‘60s and early ’70s. Elizabeth loved the classic looks of the women, and despite the joke, Playboy really did have a lot of excellent articles by top-flight authors. While paging through the magazines, Elizabeth couldn’t help but admire the photos of the Playmates. “I wish I could be a Playmate of the Month,” she finally said.

So when the couple made a brief visit back to California before casting off for Bora Bora, Erik tended to business in San Francisco, while Elizabeth flew to L.A. for a test shoot at the Playboy Mansion. The Playboy staff obviously liked what they saw, because Elizabeth became both the cover girl for the December issue and the December Playmate of the Month.

Playmates of the Month are paid $25,000. They also get the opportunity to become Playmate of the Year. That woman gets $100,000, plus a new car, plus the opportunity to make quite a bit of money doing personal appearances. This is the kind of money that could really assist in Erik and Elizabeth’s circumnavigation dreams becoming a reality — and help them start the family that they intend to take around the world.

How does a young lady get to become Playmate of the Year? Ostensibly by receiving the most votes from the public. This is where ‘Lectronic and Latitude readers come in. Just go to www.playboy.com/articles/elizabeth-ostrander-2015-pmoy-voting, then cast your vote. But before you do, we recommend that you take a look at Elizabeth’s photo spread in the December issue of Playboy. After all, the last thing you want to be is an ill-informed voter.