The Voyage of the MARTINI - Part 1
(A Brief Prehistory)
By Dave and Jaja

In 1971, when I was seven years old, my dad bought a brand new, Bill Lapworth design Cal-25 sloop. The Martini was the perfect twenty-five footer for weekends, summer vacations, and around-the-buoys. The Cal was a great little boat but it should have been the last choice to take blue water cruising.

Or should it?

In 1983 my dad and I filled our Cal-25 with provisions, initiating a two-year, ten-thousand-mile voyage that began in Seattle, Washington. We were confident and experienced inshore sailors but naive enough to head offshore without a moment's hesitation. We sailed north, circumnavigated Vancouver Island, then sailed south to the Panama Canal. On the Atlantic side we sailed north again, reaching as far as Newport, Rhode Island.

The voyage of the Martini was an eye-opener for many reasons. Besides realizing that I could do radical things and survive, I learned that when I followed a path in life that I believed in, overall events tended to go my way. If things in general weren't going the way I wanted, I questioned my motives - not the situation.

The decision to go cruising was my dad's inspiration. At first I didn't take him seriously. Then he bought a stack of sailing books. That proved how serious he really was.

"Davey?" he said, "Let's sail to the South Seas."

I was quick to answer. "I'll go pack my duffel bag."

With the decision to go blue water sailing we discovered the dilemma that gets deposited on the lawn of many aspiring cruisers: Did we want to work five or ten years' to pay for the "right boat", or should we take the boat we could afford and make the most of it? We read accounts of others who had thrived and survived on small boats. There was Bill Robinson, John Guzzwel, and David Lewis. We wondered: Were we any different from the Pardeys? If they could do it on a twenty-four footer without an engine or a head, why couldn't we take our twenty-five footer which had a Honda outboard motor and a Groco marine toilet?

The Cal-25 was not a thoroughbred ocean cruiser. It was not a strong boat. It wasn't a varnished wave slammer, nor was it a steel bombshell. It was a flimsy fiberglass bay-boat built by migrant workers. It wasn't a perfect boat, but it was an adequate dream-chaser.

We knew our limitations, and we knew the Cal-25's limitations. We decided to forego the long ocean distances of the broad Pacific and stick to the shorelines of North America and Central America. We picked a date of departure, saved our money, and departed. My dad quit his job, sold his car, gave his furniture away, and put all his worldly possession into two small cardboard boxes. The most simple and straightforward decisions in life are sometimes the toughest to initiate. And anything is possible if you want it bad enough.

Be bold.