Memories of Merlin

We were on the Baja Ha-Ha when we read in ‘Lectronic that Bill Lee had bought Merlin, the ultralight sled that he’d designed and built in 1977, and that he had trucked back to Santa Cruz with an eye to doing the 2017 Transpac.

In addition to smashing the Transpac elapsed time record in 1977, Merlin was the ultralight boat that dramatically influenced yacht design around the world for years to come.

Thanks to circumnavigator Jim Leach of Sausalito, we had a short item on the February 24, 1977, launch of Merlin in the very first issue of Latitude 38.

The second issue of Latitude featured coverage of the first-ever Singlehanded Farallones Race, which many experienced sailors thought was the height of reckless irresponsibility. The biggest entry in that event was Bill Lee’s as-yet-untried 67-footer. Lee told the organizers that he would only enter if somebody came aboard at the end of the race and helped him take down the sails.

That first Singlehanded Farallones started near Alcatraz and finished halfway down the Oakland Estuary. Race day was one of those where it was calm inside the Bay and blowing like stink out in the ocean. As we recall, Bill put a double reef in the main and flew a #4 jib. Merlin was still overpowered.

There was chaos out in the ocean, as there was a dismasting, a flipped multihull, and maybe a sinking or two. Frankly, we were a little concerned for everyone in the fleet, as everybody was new to singlehanding at the time.

We were hard at work on another 18-hour day on the second issue of Latitude when we got a call at about 4 p.m. from Survival and Safety, the outfit that then sponsored the Singlehanded Farallones Race. Merlin was passing Alcatraz, we were told, so we’d better get our ass down to the Estuary. You see, we had agreed to be the one to help Bill drop the sails after the finish.

The wind was very light in the Estuary, so dropping the sails on Merlin was easy. After we got the big sled tied up, Bill had us come down to the nav station so we could figure out his average speed from the Farallones to the Bay.

Taking out his dividers, Bill looked at us and said, “Let’s see, 60 miles to every degree of latitude, right?”

Not only were we relatively novice sailors at the time, we hadn’t sailed much in the ocean, and thus didn’t have a clue how many miles there were to a degree of latitude. Bill could have told us there were three miles to a degree and we would have agreed with him. So we just put a dumb look on our face and mumbled something unintelligible. It wasn’t hard for us to do.

Bill kind of smiled and got to work with the dividers. As we recall, he calculated that he’d made it back from the Farallones averaging 14 knots. We thought that was pretty good, but were too ignorant to know how great it really was.

Thanks to Bill’s ‘everybody is welcome to sail on Merlin‘ philosophy, she was not just a great record-setting sled, she became the mothership of a movement in sailing. A movement where everybody, not just just yacht club members, was encouraged to sail. Everybody included women, who were given positions of responsibility and time at the wheel. Few boats have ever created so many great memories for so many people.

Even though our favorite Merlin Memory made us look like the sailing ignoramus we were at the time, it’s still our favorite. How about you? We’d love to hear your favorite Merlin Memory.

And a tip of the Latitude hat to you, Bill. Your bringing Merlin back really put a smile on our face.