Since my first encounter with small boating, a water-ski towboat at the hands of the father of a girl I was dating in the middle 1960's, I thought that if I ever became a boater, I'd become a sailor.  And from time to time I'd buy a bunch of magazines and look wantingly at small sailboats only to put the idea aside in favor of something more practical . . . like SCUBA diving. In recent years I even managed to go out on sailboats twice: once on San Francisco Bay, and once at Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay.

July of last year (2005) I was bit by the bug one more time; the climax came with me actually going out over the Labor Day holiday weekend and looking at a boat. After much reading & study, rejecting several options along the way as too restrictive in terms of where I could sail, I decided to drive across the Bay to Pacifica to take a close look at a 19' foot West Wight Potter. But alas, one of my criterion was a boat that would fit into my garage and the P-19 just wasn't going to make it.

The better part of the remainder of the day was spent making my way back across the bay, stopping at marinas along the way, looking at more boats. By mid afternoon I found myself at Jack London Square looking at two P-15s on the estuary . . . and it was love at first sight!

To make a long story short, advance to the 19th of September; I've completed the A.S.A. (American Sailing Association) sanctioned Basic Keel Boat Sailing course from the City of Oakland, and returned from a quick trip to Oregon with my own West Wight Potter P-15 . . . I am a sailor!