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Roger has had a long love affair with Hobie Cats. The first one was acquired during a silly shopping venture to buy a 'sailboard' thingy. Dad was a sailor and provided a Sunfish for one and all during various vacation adventures, and Roger thought it would be neat to have another. All proceeded according to plan until Roger happened to see a Hobie 14 propped against a wall at a small boat shop in Los Gatos. The shop, the name of which is lost in history, supplied all manner of day sailboats of the kind frequently seen at Vasona Reservoir. This would have been pretty safe, except that the chief salesman at the store was one Fred Paxton, who was not only a competent salesperson, but also a ranking Olympic class sailor in the FJ class. Sensing my interest in the somewhat exotic Hobie, Fred volunteered the information that if I thought the boat looked interesting I ought to head down to Santa Cruz that weekend to observe a regata which just happened to be scheduled. |
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Well, the rest is pretty predictable. The Hobie racing group was incredibly friendly and inviting, and Roger was hooked. A week later, a Hobie 14 was on order and plans were underway to drive to the factory in San Juan Capistrano to take delivery. The rest is history. After a couple of years of sporadic attempts at racing the Hobie 14, Roger decided to upgrade to the two person version of the boat, the Hobie 16, and Bette and Roger got serious about campaigning. It was only a couple of years before they won their first 'Class B' race, and advanced to the 'A Fleet'. Racing went on for another few years until various work pressures made it difficult to find the time to keep the boat prepared and to make the necessary trips to venues that stretched from Oregon to the High Sierras to San Diego. They never decided to give it up, but it just dwindled away into the list of all those things we'll do 'when we have more time'. Roger and Robert still sail the Hobie 16, now over 30 years old, usually once a year at Huntington Lake in the Sierra's. |
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