Sailing SoNice Home

[Eddie Offermann]

So I brought SoNice from her previous home down in Alamitos Bay in Long Beach up to Marina Del Rey.

I have loved the look of these beautiful boats for years, and I have loved this girl up close and personal for the last few months as we've gotten her ready to make the trip up here, both mechanically and cosmetically: but delays have kept me from being able to take her out on anything more than one very brief trial just to test out the engine.

So the first sea trial was a 12 hour sail up the coast against a (typically) contrary wind for most of the start of it.

Alamitos Bay is underneath the "nub" of Long Beach, below Palos Verdes, LA Harbor and "Long Beach Proper" - so a WNW wind is both your enemy and to be expected.

SoNice sails like a freakin' CHAMP. She is a sturdy, quick boat, with a speed and responsiveness that suits me perfectly.  Most of the trip (until the wind died almost completely and we had to complete on power or risk taking a whole extra day to make MDR) we had her on all 4 primary sails: the roller-furled jib, the clubfooted staysail, the main and the mizzen. She was a breeze (hah! pun!) to steer by sailbalancing alone - probably 8 of the 12 hours, I managed entirely by adjusting tension on the mizzen, giving my six-person crew the ability to just enjoy the sites, relax on the deck or up on the Cleopatra, prepare food and drinks down below. Periodically, I'd call out for a couple to come and tend to the jib sheets while I'd tack, but overwhelmingly we enjoyed being carried where we wanted to go by this Newporter that seemed to know exactly what to do all by herself.

 

She is such a cinch to sail that having only one other crewman with actual sailing experience was a complete non-issue. Everyone caught on fast and I enjoyed really getting to play Captain for once - standing on deck calling out steering corrections.

 

We put the rail in for a sustained period of time and it was one of the most exciting experiences I've ever had - I've had some thrilling, powerful moments on my much-smaller Newport 20, but nothing could compare to the sheer exhilaration of this magnificent classic boat slicing through the water with just the gentlest of nudges by her crew on what we wanted her to do.

Sustained 7-7.5kts was much of the day (though a whole lot of that was due West or even SouthWest, not because we *wanted* to go that direction but because we needed to clear PV and the wind wasn't interested in helping out.)

 

Sunday I hosted an "Hello, again, Marina Del Rey!" party at the boat and had friends over that I hadn't seen much recently since I'd been spending my time in LBC making SoNice pretty and functional.

 

I'm not sure I've ever had a better weekend - but I think there are a lot more like that to come.

[Eddie Offermann]

That is fantastic!!! I can't wait to see and hear more. And welcome to the site!

[marcus e. packard]

hi eddy...i am a new member to this site. i worked at the yard in coasta mesa in 1959 for about a year. i worked on your boat and was at the dock the day we put her in the water. i may have a picture of her.  escape....denver.i knew the original owner very well. my father was the fellow who helped mr. ackerman through those hard times. my dad also owned no.65...staffordshire.  i helped him sail her to granada in 1964. i had to get off in costa rica.she was later sold to jim blackburn and i have lost track. of her.i think she is back in california...any way,i will try to find the pic for you.  mark packard....e-mail is .... [e-mail]

[Hans Petrie]

Congrats on the great "maiden" voyage.  You truly are going to have a lot of fun.  I have no problem single handing a Newporter 40 Ketch rig in any weather conditions.  Of course it is more fun to have crew!  The only time I ever felt I "had" to have crew was off Cape Mendocino where I managed to blow out all of my sails trying to heave to in some steep deep slop off the cape.  I fired up the Iron Donkey so I could maintain steerage and surfed my way into Fort Brag.  The surfing was so intense and so difficult that at most an hour at the wheel was all anyone could manage (keep in mind I have the original bronze rack and pinion affair which lets you "feel" the waves).  We surfed all night into the wee dawn when finally, after many trade offs an hour at the wheel at a time we finally got close to Fort Brag (within 20 miles) and the waves subsided enough to do a "leave to".  I may have invented the "leave to", as I had never heard of it before.  But that is what we did.  My crewmate said "Heave to!  We don't have any sails left, are you mad!"  And I said, "not HEAVE to.  LEAVE to."

 

He said, "what is a leave to?"

 

I said, as i turned off the engine, "Go to bed.  This is a leave to."  It is most notably called "lying ahull" where you roll, rail to rail and hope for the best.  Well, these old boats can take it.  And all was well the next morning when we rolled into Fort Brag, anchored along the cliffs on the Noyo River and got to work mending sails.

 

(Those sails were too old - I have since replaced them after blowing them out many times since).