Raven, Tim's J/80, where it all started.
It started as a hypothetical between races at a Saturday regatta at the close of the summer race season on Tim's J/80 Raven. What would it take for us to do R2AK? My one condition: the boat has to have a head. (That's a toilet, for the non-sailors.)
It was the kind of conversation that so easily could have stayed hypothetical. This one didn't. By the end of a day that included a bad mark rounding and an early retirement, Alex had found a boat that fit our needs and our budget, and Tim and I were all in. Forty-eight hours later, Alex had contacted the seller, Tim's partner, Jenny, had signed on, and we had a rough budget. We were ready to make an offer, betting we could add another crew member or two once we settled on the right crew size.
Then we lost her. Sadly, we ended up being the stalking horse that pushed an Australian team to make an offer first. Fighting Trousers would not be our boat. But we came away with a plan, a team, a clearer idea of what we needed and what it would cost, and enough momentum to keep going. The owner even shared some detailed, genuinely useful race-planning notes. We looked at another boat some fellow club members had raced that summer, but it didn't have a head.
The next day, three days after our abandoned race for those keeping count, Tim found a deal on a J/29 in Seattle. She isn't set up for R2AK, so she'd need major upgrades, from pedal drives to solar power. But the team was excited to get hands-on and build those systems ourselves. The seller agreed to show us the boat, and that night the four of us (Tim, Jenny, Alex and I) met at the marina for a first look. She was a clean, streamlined J/29 with new sails, new instruments and plenty of room to build the setup we'll need. She costs less up front but would need a lot more work, and money, to get race-ready. Over dinner at the marina restaurant we started planning, and we left agreeing to move forward if the numbers worked. I put together a budget that night.
The next day, Tim made an informal offer and we started forming an LLC. Wanderlust Sailing LLC was born. By the following weekend we had a formal, signed offer in and were comparing banks. Alex and I were back racing at Shilshole (on different boats this time), and Geoff, the fourth member of that Saturday's crew, decided he wanted in too.
Tim scheduled the survey for the following week. While we waited for that magic day, we started planning everything beyond the boat: Safety at Sea courses, ASA 106, practices and training. Some days it feels like we're as excited about the journey to the start line as we are about the race itself.
