Although the act of breezin' is a well founded tradition, its application as a boat name is more the result of observations and comments offered by one of our guests during a sail to the "Flats" area of Downtown Cleveland. Her keen grasp of the obvious helped convince us that it would be the perfect name for our next boat.

Now armed with a name, we began our search with dangerously little information about what kind of boat would be right for us. Beginning with a C&C 27, we seriously considered and then dismissed every type of boat from a Tartan 28 to a Wavelength 30 to a C&C 34. We had convinced most every yacht broker on Lake Erie that we were never going to decide on a boat, and that we would haunt them weekly for years to come. Then one day, during a trip to Youngstown, NY, we found our ideal boat (not to mention a great little local bar in Niagara Falls, Canada). Her lines were pleasant, the construction sound, the interior was accomodating, she was capable of racing competively and most importantly, she was within the "boat budget". It was a J/30. There was only one small problem: this particular boats deck had the rigidity of a sponge. We decided that this boat was not going to be ours, but at last we knew the type of boat we wanted. Now all we had to do is find one ... it couldn't be that hard, right?

After calling on every J/30 we heard about that had been used in fresh water only; it soon became evident that finding a J/30 was not going to be an easy task. Or at least finding one with a solid deck that hadn't been sold before we found out about it. Finally, Dolores had enough and booked a weekend 'trip from boat hell' on the east coast where J/30's were for sale in abundance. (5 states in 36 hours to see as many boats as possible!). We saw J/30's in various conditions - from very well-maintained to water-logged. But, it was on this trip we found our boat. And she was even a fresh-water boat located on Lake Champlain! We knew she was to be ours when we first stepped aboard; her deck was solid and the boat was very clean. We just had two problems - how to get her back to Lake Erie and this ugly red stripe that we simply hated. We had a mortal fear of highways and boats and painting the boat was not in the budget....

After arranging for transport, we waited patiently for the day our boat would arrive. It finally got there late one afternoon and after some major manuevering (and some tree trimming) our boat was sitting in the crane bay waiting to be launched. She was successfully launched in spite of our anxiety and made it safely over to our dock. She looked HUGE compared to the Harpoon 6.2, but docking was a breeze (no pun intended!). We finally had our boat.

We spent the next few days cleaning her and getting her ready for her first sail. Her first sail happened to be a fun race for the club and she blew everyone away. It was one of the best sails we had and the boat sailed like a dream. Got to check out the boat on a reach leg - what a blast! At that time, we knew we had made the right choice. We decided at that time we were going to enter the Golden Age Regatta just for fun. Let's see how we do against boats that race all the time. After entering the GAC, I went over to pick up our race packet the night before and attend the social hour (keg). Overheard a lot of talk (e.g. who is Breezin'?) and spoke briefly with some boats in our fleet. Got the 'new boat doesn't have a clue' treatment from most everyone.

The first race for the GAC was a fixed mark race through the harbour mouth and down the wall to East Light. We crossed a few boats on the way to the harbour mouth and had a great entry to the harbour. We were screaming in on port tack getting ready to cross another boat who was yelling 'Starboard' over and over. Billy calmly looked over and said 'hold your course' and we tacked on another boat's transom right in front of them. Needless to say, we did not make a friend that day. But we did take a second in our fleet - almost had a first but we got an overwrap on the jib sheet coming in on port tack to the finish and Rich was too paranoid to finish up without clearing it in case we needed to tack quickly. Lost just enough time to take a second. But we did succeed in making everyone notice us!

The second race was a windward/leeward, not our best conditions as we really hadn't practiced before the race. We got covered a lot during this race (guess people thought we knew what we were doing), but pulled away from our fleet. Even with a spinnaker set inside the lifelines, we took a first! Unfortunately, the tiebreaker was Saturday's race so the boat that won on Saturday took the series. We didn't care, we were thrilled to place in our first race. We also placed 9th overall for the regatta. This made us really sure we had picked the right boat.

Though we haven't had the opportunity to cruise our J/30 as much as we'd like we have continued to race our J/30 since then and have managed to place in almost every race we do. We are very happy with Breezin' and plan on keeping her for a very long time. Even though Rich would love to get a J/120 someday.....

NOTE: This boat has been known to worship a fertility god. We had been trying to have children for 3 1/2 years prior to getting the boat. Within 2 months of getting the boat, we were expecting our first child and another crew member was also expecting his first. Since then, we have had a second child and so has another member of the crew. Talk about luck!

Underway at the 2007 Leukemia Cup Regatta