  There's a rumor on the Newport Beach water front that two of the most beautiful S&S yawls ever built might be available? The little one, Olinka is definitely for sale. She's about 60 feet and the price I heard was extremely realistic? The larger one, about 65' has had one "meticulous" owner for the past 30 years and is total "PERFECTION AFLOAT." If you have the means, this is a lady you might want to pursue?" I'm saying no more. Collector's pay millions for paint on canvas, this lovely example of marine architecture belongs in a glass case... Of course, they are both examples of the fine art of wooden boat building
This is a fun I-movie trailer I made telling my friends about a 15 minute video my first mate and I made while checking off #27 on my bucket list. I've always been into films and movies starting with the Kelpie voyage to Tahiti in 1959. A friend gave me a wind-up 16mm Bolex camera and 2000 feet of color film and told me to make a movie of our adventure with hopes we could sell it. Never sold it but have a nice record of our voyage and learned everything NOT TO DO with a movie camera. One fun thing that we did was make a four minute film entitled "MUTINY ON THE KELPIE" it's on the same U-Tube channel. Also, lots of sailing adventures aboard my Down East 38 are there...Search "Ernie Minney Videos" if you are having a hard time sleeping some night?
Looking at that photo of my big ketch "Vadura" with the try sail set reminds me of a great sail I carried aboard
"Shearwater" on our world cruise. It's called a PASSAGE MAINSAIL and saved my butt on dozens of occasions. The sail was aboard the schooner when I purchased her and I never used it (in fact almost left it on the dock) the 18 months we sailed around So. California before departing for Tahiti. The PASSAGE MAINSAIL in reality is just a big try sail about the size of your mainsail when it's double reefed. It attaches to the mast after you detach your regular main. It's loose footed and you run sheets aft to either side of the boat. The beauty of this sail is that I had novice sailors crewing for me and quite often they would jibe the boat while running in heavy trade winds. Not to worry, the 22 foot 200 pound boom was secure in the gallows and no damage would take place when they jibed the PASSAGE MAINSAIL. Another good feature was that in many parts of the world the trade winds blow a constant force five and six. You would be reefed and nervous if your regular main was up, no sweat with the PASSAGE MAIN. Also, a well designed PASSAGE MAINSAIL will have reef points so you can easily shorten it or use it as a try sail if necessary. Another good feature is that you can get an old, strong main on the cheap and have it re-cut as a PASSAGE MAINSAIL. Since there is a lot of chafe going on when running in the trade winds, you will be chafing your PASSAGE MAINSAIL and saving your expensive mainsail for lighter airs near land or going to weather. Also, the PASSAGE MAINSAIL has no battens which are also a source of damage to the sail. You might also consider making the PASSAGE MAINSAIL a little bigger, perhaps the size of your regular mainsail with one reef in it? You almost never hear anything about a PASSAGE MAINSAIL. Any good sail maker can recut a regular mainsail into a PASSAGE MAINSAIL. Make sure it's ten to twelve ounce with good stitching (watch out for sun rotted stitching) and excellent material because it's going to take a LOT OF ABUSE.  This is one of my favorite photos. A French millionaire gave me a "sweetheart" deal on his 92' teak hulled ketch because he knew I would get it out of the tropics and give it a good home. Delivery to Southern California was challenging. The rudder post was half eaten through by worms, the stem was cracked , the decks leaked horribly and we encountered two cyclones while in French Polynesia. This photo with storm try'sail, reefed mizzen and fore stay sail set was taken between the Marquesas and the Tuamotos as we attempted to work out of the side of one of the cyclones...Vadura is now a houseboat anchored off Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco...
 If you google Basal cell and Squamous cell carcinoma you'll get a lot of good information on a common skin cancer that lots of us will have to deal with in our lives. Getting rid of these little cancers in our skin is kinda like cutting out "dry rot" on a wooden boat, of which I've had a lot of experience. Thank God for the "MOHS" procedure. Once the biopsy comes back as Basal or Squamous and the size and danger it presents is determined, your doctor may opt for the 'MOHS" procedure. For the doctor it's kind of an educated guess of how much tissue he should remove. He sends his slice of your skin to a technician that is in his office for the day for examination under a high tech microscope. If he finds your doc got all the "dry rot" and you have what they call "clear margins" you'll get sewed up and look like me for a week or two. If "dry rot" appears to still be in your body, larger sections will be removed and examined until "clear margins" are established. This is the scary part of the procedure. One poor guy in the waiting room was going in for his forth tissue removal as I was leaving the office. The man upstairs is looking after me and so is my skin doctor. On three different procedures through the years, I've had "clear margins" the FIRST TIME AROUND. Protect yourselves FROM THE SUN you guys. Prevention is much easier and less stress full than laying on an operating table praying the doc will get it all the FIRST TIME AROUND? Have a great week. Ernie
This video is about six months old. Many of the items shown have been sold. I'll be making a new one soon. I thought I would post it to give viewers a good idea of the great selection we have and our modest prices. Our stainless steel stanchions are always in stock. A good friend owns RAILMAKERS , only about a mile away from the store. When things are slow for his crew they fabricate the first quality stanchions and rail gates seen in my video. If you have a vintage fiberglass sailboat from Southern California, Railmaker John, probably built your original life line stanchions...  This 1943 photo of the 161 foot "Goodwill" came with a lot of boat gear and nautical decor we purchased from an estate a year ago. Sails are pretty much trimmed to perfection and dozens of sailors dressed in whites can bee seen on deck. Photo is damaged and in poor condition but not as bad as "Goodwill", which was a total loss of ship and crew on the Sacramento reef off the west coast of Baja about forty years ago..
 For many years both of my sons have said, "dad, the store website really SUCKS!" This year for Christmas they did something about it. They gave me a two year subscription to a "do -it- yourself" web page builder called "Weebly." For the past ten nights I've been working on it and am pretty proud of what I have come up with. Thanks again to both of you for a great gift and all your help in guiding me along the way. Not only are my two boys on the cutting edge of cyber world, they're two DARN GOOD SAILORS!!! Josh, pictured below has "one up" on his old man. He's sailed around CAPE HORN!  |
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