Latitude 38 Welcomes Aboard Tony English as East Bay Delivery Driver
Tony English can’t get enough of sailing and tinkering around with boats. When he saw an ad saying Latitude was looking for a driver to deliver magazines to one of our East Bay routes, he found yet another way to stay engaged with sailing. Today’s delivery of the April issue will be Tony’s first on the route, and our fourth delivery day in a row that has been rainy! It’s a heck of a way to start.
Leading up to his one-day-per-month job, Tony has been assembling an Antrim Wing dinghy in his garage. He says, “I assembled everything in the back yard. Deck layout, rigging; and with Jim and the help of a couple of neighbors we mated the hull and deck. I received a trailer from Cree Partridge that, with some minor modifications, will fit the boat very well. I spent the last couple of years rebuilding El Toros in our backyard. I got the hulls from Chris Nash and masts and sails from Kame Richards. Paul Sutchek made booms when I needed. It’s been quite a community effort.”
“My wife and I rebuilt our first boat in 1980: a derelict Piver trimaran. Since then, our garage and back yard have turned out six El Toros, the Wing dinghy, and countless other projects. We once owned an Antrim 27, and currently, Linda owns a Colgate 26, in charter service (but of course, it’s ‘optimized’). I just don’t seem to be able to leave things be. Linda gets frustrated on occasion because of my tinkering.”
Beyond the small-boat building, rebuilding and tinkering, while owning the Antrim 27 E.T., Tony took second place with it in Class D of the 2012 Pacific Cup. These days he’s primarily crewing with others, including enjoying crewing for offshore races in the YRA offshore racing series. When he needs another sailing fix he jumps aboard his wife Linda’s Colgate 26.
We really appreciate Tony’s coming on board, and all of our drivers who make the monthly run to bring Latitude 38 to our distributors, and to you, our readers. It’s a shame about the weather today, but Tony has about 30 days to dry out before the next delivery on May Day, which we promise will be sunny. (Our fingers are crossed.)