Introduction: Project Intrepid

I guess you could say Project Intrepid began when I was a young kid. Growing up in San Diego, California, I've always had a fascination with the sea and boats. I used to hang around Shelter Island and check out all the beautiful yachts and my imagination would run wild... As I grew older, my dream remained and I was lucky enough to pursue it. Sailing with my uncle John, first on Lasers, then on bigger daysailers and coastal cruisers at the Harbor Island Sailing Club, my passion for sailing really took off... This passion grew further in college, at the U.S. Naval Academy, where sailing is a mandatory subject and I had the time of my life sailing Navy 44s on the offshore sailing team and on a couple of extended training cruises up along the eastern seaboard... After college, you could say I was employed as a professional sailor, driving a U.S. Navy destroyer halfway around the world between San Diego and the Persian Gulf (then as a desk sailor in various ashore posts, but I digress...). World events and a changing view of the world as a result convinced me that my future was not in driving warships for Halliburton, the military industrial complex and the Bush Corporation, so while at my last duty assignment as a Naval Liaison officer with the Marines in Okinawa, I decided to get out of the Navy and pursue a new career as a teacher. All the while, my core values and dreams have remained constant and have become more clear...

While in Okinawa, I don't know... it just hit me one day soon after I first arrived, like one of those ingeniously idiotic, yet unexplainably compelling ideas: "Now is the time!" I just had to have the boat... Convinced that THE boat couldn't be just any boat, I searched all over the world on the Internet, for the "perfect" boat and found Intrepid in Long Island, USA. Then, after a few independent surveys and much more effort than anyone with half the common sense, I basically sold my soul to the bank, maxed out my credit cards, cashed in my life savings (not much!) and bought an old boat, sight unseen on the internet and had it shipped halfway around the world to me in a place right smack dab in the middle of "Typhoon Alley." ...Was it incredibly brave or unbelievably stupid??? Well, I guess that's the subject of this blog...

As for Intrepid... The boat couldn't have any name other than Intrepid. Intrepid: "Fearless and resolute in the face of danger" Intrepid was also the name of the first America's Cup contender built with a fin keel, which won in 1967 and 1971. Intrepid was finally defeated by Courageous, skippered by Ted Hood in 1974... Incidentally, Ted Hood was the designer of the Bristol 32 and in 1967 built my Intrepid, hull #3 of 300 something, as the only one with a fin keel, a radical concept back then. I like to think Bristol 32 hull #3 (Intrepid) is a true classic plastic.

As for the project... The boat was sold to me and arrived in January 2003 in good condition and came exceptionally well equiped. Though I've undertaken numerous "projects" to improve and maintain the boat, the subject of "Project Intrepid" is really about the purpose and the experience of the boat. You see, there really IS a method to my madness! I was not about to financially castrate myself in vain. In the words of the great Naval Officer John Paul Jones, "He who does not risk cannot win." Therefore... I admit to the world, besides my obsessive passion for sailing, I bought the boat for 2 reasons: 1.) to try my hand at chartering the boat and making side money doing sailing charters in Okinawa; at least pay for the boat or make a measurable amount of money at least for the business experience, doing sailing charters... and failing that, 2.) Live aboard!!! Yes, I've always had a fascination with the concept of living aboard a boat, ever since I was a little kid and I had a friend who lived aboard a 60 ft ketch with his parents and their dog. They took me sailing to Catalina one weekend and I just thought they had the perfect life. Their boat had all the ammenities of a house and the best part is that they could put all their "housing costs" into having the best boat possible and not have to leave their boat and go home at the end of the day. At the end of the day, they were already home. Plus, every night they got lulled to sleep by the ocean and the ambiance of it all. How cool is that!!! ...So it is, from the word go, I bought Intrepid to be a liveaboard.

Well, so I tried my hand at chartering. What a pain in the @$$! Though I've made a few dollars, it really proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Strangers coming aboard and trashing my boat just for a few bucks, which really didn't even out with the contract I had to work within at Kadena Marina. Plus, in Okinawa the weather is so unpredictable you never know until that day if it will be good for sailing, so I couldn't have any other life besides being on a short leash waiting for a charter... I still have my business plan and I guess if the right situation or offer came up I'd consider it again, but now that other life changes have occured, reason #2 (for buying the boat) has taken precedence. "Project Intrepid" is all about making it work... How to make the boat pay for itself, in a habitability sense and to create the most civilized liveaboard experience possible... In Japan... For a guy who has to make himself presentable, since I still have to work fulltime to pay for this. Making it work financially... Can owning and living aboard a boat make financial sense, compared to the alternatives of: buying a house (what about the market?) or renting (nothing to show for when your lease is up!)? There could be a whole huge philosophical debate about this (maybe in another post) but suffice to say, this is really what "Project Intrepid" is all about: Sailing Mojo- the art of practical and civilized living aboard a boat.