Part of the Wishful Thinking web site
In 1987 I came to San Francisco to visit a friend and look for my first job out of college. I was not successful in finding a job, but I did fall in love with the city and knew that I would come back here one day. My dream (even way back then) was to own and live on a sloop and keep it in San Francisco Bay.
Fast forward ten years to 1996 I moved out to California to do "that Silicon Valley thang." I rented a little cottage in Los Gatos for what seemed like a lot of money at the time. Little did I know that the rental market would be so hot and my landlord so greedy that by July of 1997 I was paying almost 2 weeks worth of salary, net, just for rent!
Finding a new residence seemed impossible. The size of the apartments kept getting smaller and smaller even as the rents went higher and higher. Purchasing property here was equally inaccessible. The down payment on a moderate condo is more than I owe on the entire mortgage for my place back in Virginia. Then a colleague at work suggested, "Gee, if rent is so expensive, why don't you buy a boat and put it in Pete's Harbor [Redwood City]."
What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that? So the adventure began. Just about this same time, I started dating a woman, who, among her other, many, talents, spent the past 7 years and 22,000 miles (at the time of this writing) cruising the waters of Mexico, the South Pacific, Hawaii, and Australia. Suzy helped me to find the perfect boat for our needs: a boat capable of blue water cruising, but comfortable enough for a dockside live-aboard for the next few years. The relationship did not last however and we have now gone our separate ways.
During one of our wanderings among the sales docks in Alameda, we came across this pretty little boat. Suzy said, "Hmmm, this boat looks familiar." We climbed aboard, looked at the radio license and she recognized it as one of her cruising/HAM friends from '95, Pam & Jim Yares! But wow, what a nice boat! Loads of storage, nice layout, good gear etc. And the rest, as the say, is history.
I took possession of the boat on September 17, 1997. We renamed her to Wishful Thinking because that's how we found her and the whole thing seems somehow, right. If you want to know where we're keeping her, check out the getting there page. (In case you're trying to reach us, it should have the most current information, too.)
George Stadel, III designed the Mariner Centaur for world cruising. She is tough, well built and ideally suited for a couple, like us, who want to sail in safety and comfort. She is cruise ready -- but of course there are always additions, improvements and maintenance! We chose her for the following reasons:
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