Out The Gate Sailing

Marga Pretorius stumbled into sailing while a freshman at UC Berkeley and quickly realized if she wanted to head off towards the horizon on her own boat one day she’d need to learn how to fix all things nautical. Work on her own vessels and a career at the Berkeley Marine Center had her tackling all kinds of boat projects. Today she lives and cruises aboard her Kelly Peterson 44 - with an impressive collection of tools that she clearly knows how to use - as illustrated in her May 2021 Cruising World article. She’s recently started a marine surveying and consulting business called Dogfish Boatworks so you too can benefit from her expertise.

In March of 2021, during the Corinthian Yacht Club Midwinter race, Jim Diepenbrock was dismasted while sailing his Swan 48, Wingman 5. It was a dangerous situation, but Jim handled it with a calm demeanor that allowed him to get his boat and his crew safely back to the dock. We talk about this incident and other scary situations he’s encountered while racing on the west coast.

Roughly 15 years ago, Barry Walton and two of his surfing buddies bought a 24-foot sailboat, sailed it out the Golden Gate, turned left, and spent months sailing down the coast to Mexico. Though the trip wasn’t at all what Barry was expecting, he brought along a camera, filmed the adventure and just recently turned the footage into a 5-part documentary called Reaching Reality.

Noelle Brewin and Laura Levy met while sailing on San Francisco Bay. They bonded over a desire to create quality sailing apparel for women. Together the recently started Somand and launched the Farallon Jacket with an anatomical cut, and many other design features, specifically crafted for women. We talk about getting the business up and running during the pandemic and their plans going forward.

Cyril Derreumaux is attempting to solo paddle his kayak across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Hawaii. French-born, Cyril now lives and began paddling here in the Bay Area about a decade ago. Since then, he’s raced the Moloka’i Hoe in Hawaii, paddled the Cal100 down the Sacramento Rive, done the 444-mile Yukon River Quest race in Canada twice, and in 2016 skippered a 4-man row from CA to Hawaii - setting a world record time of 39-days, 9-hours and 56-minutes for the 2,400 mile trip. You can follow his current crossing at SoloKayakToHawaii.com

Brady Trautman and Alex Blue are a filmmaking and sailing due who met cruising on SV Delos. For the moment, they’ve left the high seas and are starting a new adventure on Lake Tahoe - a sailing school called the Cruisers Academy. I talk with Brady and Blue about their time sailing on Delos, their adventure sailing in Svalbard, the resulting documentary series “80 Degrees North,” and their new ventures in Tahoe and beyond.

Ron Elliot probably has more close encounters with great white sharks than nearly any other person. Ron is a retired urchin diver who has spent countless hours underwater at the Farallon Islands. He continues to dive at the Farallons, even after a recent encounter during which he found himself facing a massive shark charging him with open jaws…. He didn’t escape unscathed. Watch Near Miss, a film by Josh Berry featuring Ron. And help support shark research at the Farallons, which has suffered a loss of funding during the COVID pandemic.

Brooks Watson started sailing about a year ago. But he’s jumped in with both feet, not only getting out on the water, but building a new community for sailors on the Clubhouse social media platform and launching a non-profit, Watts on Water that will enable cruisers to bring solar powered lights to those in need all over the world. He’s currently focused on the recent disaster in St. Vincent and is working to bring lights to those in need after a volcanic eruption cup power to much of the island.

James Dilworth is a sailor and boat builder. He built a 17-foot catamaran, strapped it to the roof of his car, took it down to Mexico and spent time exploring the Sea of Cortez. Once, in a challenge from the Discovery Channel, he built a boat with 3-grand in 3-days and attempted to sail it to the Farallon Islands. When I first met James he was getting ready to fly to the Philippines where he’d bought a traditional dug-out canoe, outrigger sailboat to take between the islands. In this conversation he shares the highs and lows, close calls and unforgettable experiences from his many adventures.

Joe Balderrama loves the feeling of sailing alone - and he’s done a lot of it both in the San Francisco Bay and across oceans. He’s currently the Commodore of the San Francisco Bay Singlehanded Sailing Society. We talk about everything from the Three Bridge Fiasco to surviving squalls in the Pacific.