Recent Entries
Midnight Revelations Aboard Ragtime
Dear Islands Race Ragtime team, This past weekend, I got to be a part of a sailing team instead of a hospital code team, the latter space where I’ve been for 26 years. Sailing and coding a patient both require a deep sense of teamwork, trust, and communication. On a sailboat, every crew member has…
2005 - 2010
Ragtime Wins 600-Mile Two-Person Race
Perhaps the most rewarding sailing I have ever experienced was onboard Ragtime for a four and a half-day non-stop race with my teammate, Chris Welsh, on his 65-foot beautiful yacht. Chris was more than an ideal partner, and this was a huge accomplishment in my sailing career. Ragtime was the most famous ocean racer from…
Ragtime’s Classic Series Finale
The Classic Series has been great already with two days down and one to go. Running Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the fleet is good sized (50 +/-) with five in the “Ranger” Division. The Classic courses have been what I call “geography” courses – across the bay and down a channel to one buoy, around a…
Curious whether we fit for membership as a Mini-Maxi
S/V Ragtime, Ex-Infidel Spencer 65′, constructed 1964 Racing Highlights: 1967 New Zealand Fleet Champion 1971 Transpac First to Finish 1973 Transpac First to Finish 2009 Tahiti Race, First Overall 2009 Sydney-Hobart, First, IRC Division II Corrected 2009 Sydney-Hobart, First, IRC Division II Line Honors 2009 Sydney-Hobart, First Foreign Yacht 2009 Sydney-Hobart, 11th IRC Overall Holder,…
Los Angeles to Tahiti Newsletter
Greetings everyone, Attached is my Sailing Newsletter for 08. It’s a bit long, describing everything I’ve taken part in this year, including winning Key West on the Melges 32 Star, doing pit at the Farr 40 Worlds on Groovederci, training in the Ynglings with the US Olympic team, doing lots of match racing, culminating…
Ragtime Alumni Call
Long time no chat. Put me in the Club. 2001 Transpac. Not our breeze, but the real honor was the constant stream of visitors at the dock after the finish, wanting to see the ol girl in her glory after Trish Steele had spent the $ to have Owen Minney and team make her look…
Ragtime Barred from Sled Event
Ragtime was invited (?) to race the 70’s Sled event, and I, owner of Ragtime, helped get other boats involved. They now have 7 entries, plus us. They denied us entry yesterday by phone, saying we are 65′ long, not a 70′ sled, and we were not actually “invited”. This morning, I went to attend…
Ragtime’s Auction Saga
To: Alan Peterson; John Drayton; John Aschieris Subject: Ragtime RAGTIME It doesn’t seem so very long ago that a syndicate of six Long Beach (California) sailors chipped in $5,000 each in 1973 to buy a 62-foot wooden boat built in New Zealand for the sole purpose of doing the Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii—just…