I was a crazed café racer that would go on group rides where we would sometimes cruise at 100 mph plus on the back roads of the San Francisco peninsula. It was great times! I started dating a girl who came from a sailing family. She called one day to ask if I could tow a 1980 Nationals Hobie 16 home that she’d just purchased from the Santa Cruz dealer. She bribed me with a quick sail before towing it home. After an hour, I was hooked. We did a couple of races on her boat but she decided I wasn’t dating material so we parted.

I had seen a couple of crashes that were too close for comfort and decided to sell my bike. That made it very to start my 26-year love of sailing. I bought a Hobie 16 from a dealer in Foster City that knew less about the boat than I did. I bought a few books, found people to crew for me and basically learned by trial and error.

I discovered that there was something called a Hobie fleet and joined Fleet 20 in San Jose. Excellent move. At the first fun sail, the other members were all over my boat like locusts making adjustments and giving me tips on stuff to buy to improve the boat. We’d probably do six or seven races every weekend so it was easy to observe what the fast guys were doing and to ask them questions.

Over the years since I’ve done a lot of racing, met my wife at a Hobie Christmas party, run very successful committee boats, taught Hobie sailing through local junior colleges and am now heavily involved with a juniors program using Sabots. I guess you have to sail monohulls occasionally.

One of the best moves I ever made was to unload the bike and buy my Hobie. It probably kept me from killing myself and opened up a huge new world of sailing and lots of new friends. The old girl friend? She traded the Hobie for two motorized surfboards. What a dope!