One Rubber Raft Evolves Into a Small Fleet of Sailboats
When Latitude reader Paula Sunn picked up a copy of the October issue from the Chico Yacht Club, where she’s been a member for the past 19 years, she found one of our Golden Tickets nestled among the magazine’s pages. After sending us the photo below in order to claim her new Latitude 38 hat, Paula followed up with her sailing story, which makes us just want to get out of the office and go sailing …
“As a 12-year-old, I’d desperately wanted a boat, and all I could afford was a rubber raft on my meager babysitting income,” Paula begins. “My parents would take me and a friend to Lake Vasona in Los Gatos, where there was, at the time, quite a fleet of El Toros. My dad thought an El Toro would be a fun woodworking project (it turned out to be far more frustrating and difficult than he’d imagined), and after completion, we needed to learn how to sail. So we took some lessons, and eventually we both began to dream of a bigger boat we could sail on the Bay. Against my mother’s wishes, he eventually got a Coronado 25, which we sailed out of Alameda until I went off to college. After I graduated, my father gave me the El Toro, and I’ve been sailing ever since.”
Today, Paula owns three sailboats — a Capri 18, Chill Out, a Day Sailer, Chill, and a Hobie Wave; she plans to sell the Day Sailer and keep just the Hobie and Chill Out.
Paula says that she’s also owned a San Juan 21, a Pearson Triton and an Islander 32. Most recently, she tells us, she’s enjoyed sailing Chill Out on Lake Oroville, “… having downsized as we age,” she adds.
“We spent over 30 wonderful years sailing the Bay and Delta, first on our Pearson Triton, Mintaka, then moving up to our Islander 32, Andiamo.”
We also still sail our Hobie Wave,” Paula continues, “the only thing we had that survived the Camp Fire when we lived in Paradise. She now sports a new hull (one hull has blue-and-pink decals and the other orange-and-green), one white rudder and one black, new trampoline, and patches on her sail where embers burned through. She’s a real calico cat now and as fun as ever.”
“I’ve always loved being on the water, and what better way than sailing? The way the boat feels when you’ve turned off the engine after maneuvering out of the marina is so sweet. It just makes me happy!”
While crewing on the 2015 Baja Ha-Ha was one of Paula’s sailing highlights, she says her favorite times have been summer days spent sailing in the Delta: “… with all of its challenges, anchoring midafternoon, then raising the mast on our towed Hobie to just blast around amongst the tules, completely soaked and having a heck of a lot of fun. And afterwards, evenings spent socializing and enjoying another night on the water. I love it!”
Golden Ticket winners usually appear in a run. Paula is the first to claim the prize in recent months; will you be next?