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boomer

Super Anarchist
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Boomer you speak of the master sailor Gary Swenson and his dad Roy that had the Ranger 26.
Gary is still one of my best friends. He is a legend that won about every race that California had to offer. All of us learned how to properly sail with him, either against or with him on his boats. he has natural ability, salesmanship and balls in spades.
The Islander 30 mk2 was owned by Frank Klatt (we called him fine entry Frank) and sailed by mostly his son David we called him Deek, still a great sailor. Yeah he wore glasses but he could see shit that others couldn't. Frank's daughter Liz also a very good sailor did a lot of racing with and against us as youngsters.
The Cal 40 was notorious for the guy that owned it. We won't mention his name or the boats name. He had a wife and a girl friend that mysteriously fell overboard on separate occasions on sails out to Anacapa Island. They never made it back but he did. I was never quite sure if this was a myth or not and I was around. That lot is long gone.
There was an other Cal 40 owned by Walter Pressel. That's probably the one your thinking about hopefully.
Ventucky, you didn't sail with me on one of my Moore 24's did you? Saltshaker or Zinfidel?
One was red the other was yellow.
We probably know a lot of the same people. I surfed Hollywood and the Strand when it was HARDCORE 60's 70's 80''s and the 90's when it was over run with southers (which could have been people from the north too including Ventura). very tight group of locals there. I was just there a few weeks ago. I hardly recognized the place. Over run! I remember mostly fields of beans and cilantro as far as the eye could see. Now strip malls and condos.
Your memory is much better then mine. Yes Roy Swenson, or perhaps Gary Swenson as the sailor of the Ranger 26, bringing his kid or perhaps someone's kid at the club out sailing. He would have been a bit young to have a toddler at his age then then of 19-20. Age wise, Gary Swenson would be almost or about my age. Frank Klatt the owner of the only Islander 30 Mk II out of CIYC, I sailed on a lot the fall and early winter of '72. He kept his boat moored out near the end of one of the finger piers, in front of the club. After I got back from deployment and got our 30 days of "Muster and Make it", the two of us mostly double handed his Islander 30, till I got my requested orders to the Aleutians, at the end of December.

A real gregarious and friendly guy Frank, he introduced me to the Channel Islands Yacht Club sailors. The racing was unlike the racing in the PNW that I was used to, which was usual at least 3-5 legs for club racing or long distance races for the larger Center Sound races in the PNW. Where as if most of our club racing out of Channel Islands Yacht Club, was up or down the coast, round a mark and return or twice around.

Frank had a friend from Marina del Ray who'd occasionally come up and sail with us, and we went 60 miles south down to sail with him on his largish Meter boat once, I don't recall his name either, but a well known sailor down there, everyone knew him. He'd win all the big races around LA with his meter boat.

I don't recall Frank being married at that time, but perhaps he was - but as far as I knew he was single and acted single in 1972. Sailed out to the island on cruise, with another sailor from CIYC aboard his Ericson 29.

I recall now, Walter Pressel. The Cal 40 was probably the first one you spoke of and not Walter Pressel's Cal 40, I don't recall how I met him, probably through Frank or at the Yacht Club. The owner was the party type, with more then a few single women at his parties. I was more interested in the Cal 40 moored in front of his place. I only sailed on it once, with a crew of, you guessed it - women - whom I was cordial with, but nothing more, because it seemed like most, besides the partying, were looking to party, with some looking to get hitched - which I had a strong adversion to at the time.

At least the women around the Channel Islands were mostly trim or in shape - and easy on the eyes - so that was a good thang - unlike many of the women around Port Hueneme/Oxnard night club scene then, many of whom, us Seebees dubbed Port Hueneme Sweat Hogs. Which was common around Navy bases in those days. But the word was out among the Seabees, not that I need to be told, "to give Sweat Hogs and Bremalos a wide berth."

Gary Swenson of Ullman Sails at 69

David "Deke" Klatt is about four year younger then I - and kinda looks like his dad Frank - odd that Frank didn't talk about a family - perhaps he did, I don't recall - perhaps they were seperated at that time - beats the hell out of me.
 
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10thTonner

Hazard to Navigation
1,771
707
South of Spandau
7f82bbb5438dbfbe4177dfcea2d63fb5.jpg
 

Willin'

Super Anarchist
4,271
1,938
The Burg, Maine
Boomer you speak of the master sailor Gary Swenson and his dad Roy that had the Ranger 26.
Gary is still one of my best friends. He is a legend that won about every race that California had to offer. All of us learned how to properly sail with him, either against or with him on his boats. he has natural ability, salesmanship and balls in spades.
The Islander 30 mk2 was owned by Frank Klatt (we called him fine entry Frank) and sailed by mostly his son David we called him Deek, still a great sailor. Yeah he wore glasses but he could see shit that others couldn't. Frank's daughter Liz also a very good sailor did a lot of racing with and against us as youngsters.
The Cal 40 was notorious for the guy that owned it. We won't mention his name or the boats name. He had a wife and a girl friend that mysteriously fell overboard on separate occasions on sails out to Anacapa Island. They never made it back but he did. I was never quite sure if this was a myth or not and I was around. That lot is long gone.
There was an other Cal 40 owned by Walter Pressel. That's probably the one your thinking about hopefully.
Ventucky, you didn't sail with me on one of my Moore 24's did you? Saltshaker or Zinfidel?
One was red the other was yellow.
We probably know a lot of the same people. I surfed Hollywood and the Strand when it was HARDCORE 60's 70's 80''s and the 90's when it was over run with southers (which could have been people from the north too including Ventura). very tight group of locals there. I was just there a few weeks ago. I hardly recognized the place. Over run! I remember mostly fields of beans and cilantro as far as the eye could see. Now strip malls and condos.
The drive through the strawberry and other fields on the way in to CIH from the 101 was a high point of our weekends at the boat. The times the aroma from the covered landfill hit the beach on offshore wind days, not so much.

I bought an H28 in CIH in 1989 and chose to leave it there despite living 3 hours away in the San Berdoo Mtns. Our Friday night ritual was to arrive around 10, hit the Tail for live music (I wonder if our paths may have crossed there Ventucky?), beers and free popcorn, then map out our weekend. More often than not the boat was our beach house when the winds weren't conducive or we just felt lazy.

We kept the boat there until we moved out to Avalon in 1995, then took it down south to the island and LA harbor in the winter. That CI/ Ventura stretch of coast was like the land that time forgot in SoCal. I wish we could have made living there full time work.

There was an annual classic boat regatta at Pacific Corinthian YC we entered and scored third place ketch honors a few times. Got to meet David Crosby and his young wife Jan at one of them.

I believe it was the Lobster Trap had amazing free roast beef sandwiches and noshes at happy hour and occasionally big name music. I always thought of the bar down in Silver Strand as the dirtbag place. It was roughly the equivalent of the Ruds but had no beach frontage or even sea view. There was an air of desperation about everyone there, but good cheap drinks so I hit it on those odd weekends when I came up alone. It seems like most bars had free food at happy hour back then, which made for great cheap dinners when friends came up to help out on yard hauls.

About summer 1999 I interviewed for the Manager of the wastewater plant at the entrance to Ventura Harbor and we were dead set that if I got that job we'd buy a house in Hollywood Beach and surf and sail our way into retirement.

Alas, I didn't get that job, in frustration we packed it all in, took 10 months off to travel NZ and the South Pac, and ultimately wound up in Maine, which I consider a win.

I still look back on those SoCal beach days fondly though.
 

Ventucky Red

Super Anarchist
11,720
1,376
Ventucky, you didn't sail with me on one of my Moore 24's did you? Saltshaker or Zinfidel?
White hull grey deck. I think the owners name was Stephan mostly skipperd by a kid named Todd - pretty good sailor. It was kept in at Anacapa YC over by the Left Bank restruant.
We probably know a lot of the same people. I surfed Hollywood and the Strand when it was HARDCORE 60's 70's 80''s and the 90's when it was over run with southers (which could have been people from the north too including Ventura). very tight group of locals there. I was just there a few weeks ago. I hardly recognized the place. Over run! I remember mostly fields of beans and cilantro as far as the eye could see. Now strip malls and condos.
Yeup.... LA and the Bay area have found out about our little slice of paradise - and they're building more.

This is from one of the Milt Ingram races, or maybe the Tri-Point that took me a few years for PBYC to let Beachcats in

2 of 10.JPG
 

boomer

Super Anarchist
16,873
1,902
PNW
Monumentte in CC dedicatted to ????
Columbus Circle Momument

Dedicated in 1892, the monument is the center point of the traffic circle just beyond the southwestern corner of the Park. The carved marble figure of Columbus was made in Italy by the sculptor Gaetano Russo.


This particular monument to Columbus was erected as a symbol of Italian-American pride at the turn of the 20th century, a time when many immigrants from Italy experienced discrimination and were seeking to see themselves represented in the City’s public spaces. In preparation for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, the Italian-language newspaper Il Progresso, under the editorial direction of Carlo Barsotti, began a campaign to raise money for a monument. Barsotti dedicated his life to lobbying for various monuments to Italian heroes and helped place five monuments in New York, including this monument to Columbus. Italian Americans donated not only the funds but also their physical labor to the construction of Columbus, working for free to prepare the site for the monument. At the bottom of the column on which Columbus stands are several inscriptions in English and Italian that equate the challenges Columbus encountered with the challenges of contemporary Italian immigrants in America.


While Columbus continues to be a symbol of Italian-American pride, since the 1970s, his life and legacy have been re-examined by scholars and the general public. He is no longer popularly used as a symbol of America, and critics have objected to the veneration of a historic figure and event that lead to the exploitation and genocide of indigenous people. As a result, many municipalities have decided to recontextualize or remove their Columbus monuments.


An additional monument to Columbus is located along the Mall. Another was planned for the Park’s southeast corner, also for the 400th anniversary, but never realized
 

Snaggletooth

SA's Morrelle Compasse
35,259
6,109
CC is allso whearre the collosolle Staye Puft Marshmellowe Man wreekes havoc with NYC traffic, Ghostebusteres.
 
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