RBSA Catalina 25 Fleet 92 Receives International Coverage!
A full-page story plus other information about the RBSA Catalina 25 fleet were published in the May 2000 issue of "MAINSHEET" (Vol. 18, No. 2), the Catalina owners magazine that is distributed worldwide.
The story is a humorous report of the Lewes circle trip that Drew Woodall, Sr. and Jr.; Jim Stimpson; Peggy Young; Doug Hicks; Dave Cerney; Jim Moorehead; and Pal Littleton made last July. The story was authored by Catalina 25 Fleet 92’s captain, Pal Littleton, and was originally published with pictures on the RBSA website. Jim Moorhead professionally edited - with sound track - a video that he made of the trip. The video has been shown at an RBSA Board meeting and will be shown this summer at the Club and a "loaner" copy of the tape is available from Jim.
Also included in the publication was a story about Fleet 92 and its activities. "MAINSHEET’ readers were referred to our website <www.rbsa.org> for additional information about the Club and its many activities.
Catalina 25 skippers who have not yet joined or renewed their membership in the Catalina 25 National Association should send the following information along with a check in the amount of $20 payable to "Catalina 25 National Association" to Craig Osteriah, 3914 Little Cottonwood Lane, Sandy, UT 84092. Send boat name, hull number, year of boat, along with your name, spouse name, address, phone, and e-mail address to Craig and specify that your boat is located at the Rehoboth Bay Sailing Association’s marina in Dewey Beach, DE. A subscription to "MAINSHEET" is included with membership.
RBSA Big Boat Lewes Circle Trip – Club Members to be Featured in Soon to be Released Documentary Video
On Saturday, July 31, 1999, four sailboats from the Rehoboth Bay Sailing Association (three Catalina 25s from Fleet 92 and an Irwin 27) left the RBSA marina at 0953 with the following RBSA members on board: Doug Hicks (skipper) and Dave Cereny and guests on Buccaneer III, Pal Littleton (skipper) and Jim Moorhead on Adventure, Jim Stimpson (skipper) and Peggy Young on Windsong, and Drew Woodall, Sr. (skipper) and Drew Woodall, Jr. on Zama. This was going to be the first ocean sailing experience for several of the members – all of whom had recently increased their life insurance.
The plan of the day for this approximately 35 nm trip was to sail south on the Rehoboth Bay, motor through serpentine Massey’s Ditch, enter the ocean via Indian River Inlet, sail up the beach front to Cape Henlopen, enter the Delaware Bay, proceed to Roosevelt Inlet, travel down the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal opening the draw bridges along the way, and then sail back to the Club. Of the group, Drew & Drew had the most prior ocean experience, Pal & Jim the most electronics per square foot, Jim & Peggy the desire to show that a couple could do this for the first time, and Doug & Dave a commitment to exchange finned and human guests throughout the trip. It should be noted that Jim Moorhead had brought along his new digital VCR with the plan of shooting the entire adventure to make a documentary that he was convinced would be sought by Nova or PBS and would certainly capture the imagination of other great world adventurers.
The weather was most cooperative but hot. Transiting the much feared Indian River Inlet was planned at slack high tide. With the tallest mast, this also allowed Doug to drag his antenna across the underside of each bridge girder to the non-amusement of his crew who were seen diving down the companion-way with their arms over their heads. Entering the ocean, Pal once again became fixated on his depth gauge, seeing so rarely the number 29 without a decimal point between the numbers and a keel stuck on the bottom.
The RBSA fleet sailed the ocean to Rehoboth quite close to shore. In fact, passing Dewey Beach, Elyse Moorhead watching from the beach in sheer amazement that her husband had made it alive that far interpreted Jim’s enthusiastic waving to mean that he wanted her to swim out to the boat. She seemed to mutter something and declined. At the center of Rehoboth Beach, Doug and Dave and crew interpreted the red marks set out by the life guards to be some kind on indication that the approximately 100,000 folks on the beach wanted to see a nature show. They promptly sailed to the beach side of the marks and tossed two folks overboard into the midst of what some of us guessed to be 30 man-eating dolphins. Being non-hungry mammals, the dolphins decided to humor Doug and Dave and swim/play with the humans. Moorhead documented it all to show to the next of kin.
Surprisingly, near the Henlopen Hotel, Pal spotted Sue Woodall waving from the boardwalk. She too appeared to be in sheer amazement that we had made it that far alive. Interestingly, Drew Jr. must have had the binoculars on the Woodall’s boat and, while spotting many gals his age on the beach, somehow totally missed seeing his mother. Pauline Littleton, who Pal was actually looking for, later explained that the anticipated excitement of seeing a bunch of sailboats was much too much for her and had elected to take a nap on the porch instead.
From that point on, the group split with Pal/Jim M. and Jim S./Peggy taking the initially faster route to sea while Drew/Drew and Doug/Dave et. al. stayed closer to shore in search of the Hen and Chickens Shoal. Pal provided non-stop 30 second fixes and updated ETA reports with his new GPS that he and Jim were both trying to simultaneously figure out how to use in all of its various modes. No radio traffic was ever heard from Buccaneer III -- either the captain and crew were convinced that they only needed to communicate with their dolphin friends – or the Indian River Bridge had done "a number" on their antenna.
Doug, aided by a Delaware River pilot who he had snuck on board without the rest of our knowledge, who close behind Drew as they rounded Cape Henelopen – much ahead of Pal and Jim S. From that point, Drew Sr.who had an important engagement that night, made a bee-line for home under power. While the rest of us were sorry to see him depart the fleet, we were all secretly happy that he was going to enter the canal first since, if we later came upon him stuck on a shoal, we would have a good indication of where not to go.
Entering the Delaware Bay we had a discussion with the Lewes-Cape May Ferry captain. (Pal offered on channel 16 that the fast moving ferry could go anywhere it wanted but would it please not run over the two "little" sailboats off its bow.) At the same time, the wind really came up. Pal/Jim M., caught with their bimini up and full sails, went through a non-coordinated fire drill to get everything under control. This was not repeated by Jim and Peggy who seemed to have it all under control for the entire trip. But who comes roaring up on a direct collision course under full sails – none other than Doug who was anxious to try out his new jib and see just how much of the rail he could put under.
After getting through Roosevelt Inlet and past a power boat on fire (others were helping him) Doug and Dave elected to throw off some of their crew and exchange them with a non-documented group of mixed ages who were looking for an escape south. All together we then showed the Lewes folks something by having three boats pass through the drawbridge together. (Many of the sport fishermen in Lewes had never seen a sailboat before and thought the mast was one of the tallest outriggers they had seen.) Pal/Jim M. and Jim S./Peggy were able to show, demonstrate – become affixed upon – the shallow point before the infamous new Lewes railroad bridge (who allowed these folks to so significantly narrow the canal?). Doug, in appreciation for this favor, somehow was hell-bent on taking off J & P stern (boat and personal sterns) and respective sterns were saved only by the frantic shouting of D & D’s crew.
One of the highlights of the trip was that Jim Moorhead cell-phoned his wife to tell her when we would be reaching the Rehoboth draw bridge. Elyse and son Andrew and nephew/cousin James came to the bridge to witness the passing. Pal called on VHF and asked the bridge tender, Greg, if he would allow the Moorhead clan to come up in the tower to see this memorable event. Indeed our new friend did just that and the boys "helped" raise the bridge and took great delight in blowing a deafening horn as we each passed by. Again all was digitally documented by Dad Jim. Jim also documented a scantily bikini-clad young lady on a power boat a short time later on the trip – in fact I had to yell at him to turn off the camera for fear that he would run out of tape and/or battery power and/or fall off Adventure – or block my view.
We entered Rehoboth Bay just as the sun was setting. All know that Rehoboth Bay has the prettiest sun sets that there are – but this was even more so as the circumnavigators had the setting sun to our sterns. Jim M. has great pictures of this (and a lot more). We all made it back to the RBSA marina safe, sound, tired, sun-burned, and, as wives noted, somewhat smelly. It was great fun and next year we will be looking for even a larger contingent of Catalina 25 Fleet 92 and other RBSA "big boats" to make the trip.
Jim Moorhead is editing the tape documenting our great expedition – with the plan of having some still pictures "pasted" into this trip report as well as prepare a "quick time video" for the RBSA Website. So, if the excitement of this historic trip has captured your imagination – stayed tuned on www.rbsa.org for the pictures/video.
Respectfully submitted,
Pal Littleton, RBSA Commodore and Captain, Catalina 25 Fleet 92