About

Sha‘da or Shada is the Native American word for pelican. Why Pelican? Pelicans have been Christine’s and mine “icons” since we got married and watched pelicans fly and dive for hours from our hotel room in Florida. Ever since then we have exchanged anniversary gifts with a pelican theme. When I got the J/109 I wanted a new boat name that reflected that connection with sailing, water, and pelicans. I searched high and low for any reference to pelicans in a different language, folklore or stories. The few references I found suggested Shada may be it. The name was used in one of Longfellow’s poems (Song of Hiawatha) and a reference from a 1901 Nature Bird Book– The White Pelican as it calmly floats on the surface of the water, some distance from the shore, has been mistaken for the sail of a boat as the white feathers glisten in the sunshine. Thus, the J/109 became Shada.

Shada is the evolution of my passion for sailing. I started sailing at nine years old when my dad bought his first sailboat in the early 1960s — a “backyard” custom gaff-rigged Malibu Outrigger we sailed out of Newport Beach, California. Then a move to the Houston area in 1963 to a house next to the Houston Yacht Club on Galveston Bay. The outrigger fell apart from dry rot and my dad upgraded to a Flying Scot and small Firefly (similar to a Sunfish). I spent many a hot summer day either on the Flying Scot or solo on the Firefly in the waters next to the Houston Yacht Club. Eventually, a move back to California in 1967 and sailing out of Ventura until 1972. Once I left for college sailing got put on the back burner, but the interest never waned. I was able to still do some sailing despite school, a growing family and work. While at UC Davis I brought the Flying Scot to Davis and sailed on Folsom Lake. Then in 1985, I took my first job teaching at Virginia Tech and while there had my first introduction to racing and was able to crew on a 30-foot cruising boat on Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke Virginia. With the desire to get back to sailing and the west coast, Christine and I landed in Seattle in 1990 with one of the main draws was being next to the water for sailing and the mountains for hiking and camping. Within a year I bought Paradoxx, a Merit-25 (similar to a J-24) and we mainly cruised Lake Union and Lake Washington. With the vast Puget Sound to the west, I was subletting a slip at Shilshole Bay Marina in the summer of 1994 for longer cruising trips around the sound. John Cahill (who also had a Merit-25) saw Paradoxx at the marina and said “Have you ever considered racing? We are starting a one-design fleet and looking for boats to join the fleet”. In the back of my mind, I thought I would eventually try racing but kept postponing doing it. My dad had always dreamed of racing but never got around to it. Things kept getting in his way, something he regretted later in life. I started thinking “why not?” If not now when? If not, I’d be like my dad and it will be too late. John invited me to crew with him on his boat, Paradigm Shift that summer, and I was hooked. The following year, I moved Paradoxx from Lake Union to Shilshole Bay and started racing Paradoxx from 1996 to 2005 in many of the local racing regattas. By 2005 the Merit-25 fleet had dwindled, and we were mainly racing PHRF in a slow, cold wet boat. At the same time, Maresa (12 years old) and Sydney (9 years old) were growing up fast. We had done a lot of family camping in the Cascades and now the window was closing for them to have flexible time. I wanted to expand the camping into cruising but needed a faster, larger boat so we could enjoy extended family cruising/camping and also a larger boat for racing. The J/109 seemed to be a perfect fit. It was a new 35-foot racer/cruiser J-boat introduced in 2003. By the fall of 2005, the two-year-old, minimally sailed J/109 #44 Traveller came on the market and she then became Shada. Sadly, extended family summer cruising did not develop. The girls quickly got busy with school and simultaneously got the horse bug from Christine. With school and equestrian events, extended family cruising just didn’t fit into busy weekend schedules. Christine attempted to race and go out sailing as well, but ever since Maresa and Sydney were born, whatever the trigger was, she progressively got more violently seasick with each attempt — again making family cruising difficult. Although I have not been able to cruise as much as I would like, on the bright side the J/109 is still a safe great racer/cruiser for the Salish Sea and I continue to race buoy and distance races as much as possible with no plans to stop until I can’t physically do it.

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