Posted: Oct 16, 2008 - 01:03 PM
Thought I'd finally join in--after reading and watching for more than a year (Damon can attest that I've had my issues with 'remembering passwords' and such). This forum looked like the right place to start, so here goes:
1) Name: Parks Schaefer
2) Location: East Coast, with long associaiton with the Chesapeake Bay, the ICW, and the Outer Banks -- love the local references when they appear!
3) Experience: 45+ years sailing - on the Bay, mostly in Albergs, Catalinas, C&Cs, Hunters, and numerous others. Was a charterboat 'captain & crew' when I was a teen (one summer). Could usually p/u a boat to crew, if I showed up with gear and a good head on Wed nights for club racing. Didn't own my own boat until ten years ago (career, family, etc. etc.) Now am a 'fleet owner' with five Hobies (3 x H16, H17, H18) and a beautiful O'Day 32' Center Cockpit Sloop living at Solomons, MD.
4) Education/Interests/Training: engineer, and I mainly focus on re-working the rigging of the Hobie fleet, as my '80s boats could all use some design upgrades. Learned to fiberglass by building surfboards (still have and use the first two), learned finish carpentry & woodworking at my father's side, & metal working (to include welding) from my grandfather and my brother-in-law.
5) Accomplishments: Have designed & built a two-level HobieHauler (inspired by pics from this site!). Added a masthead 125% genoa to the H16 (she really, really flys now!) that mod was inspired by another fellow in Va Beach who has done v. interesting stuff for the H14. Re-rigged the H16 for significantly (IMHO) easier single-handing (during ocean testing five miles out to sea off of the Kitty Hawk Memorial (great navigation point, BTW), suffered an abdominal hernia while on the trap and brought the boat all of the way in solo & safely - never had to de-power or unload sail)
6) Am in no way interested in class racing as all of my mods are out of bounds, but I do love to watch the crews work the boats--gives me ideas on what to work on next.
7) Next Steps: Winters are for design and mod work, spring and summer are for test - mod - test (and a lot of sailing!) Thinking about retiring from the corporate grind next spring and moving a bit south - am renewing my Captain's ticket and considering a 'beach job' teaching sailing and renting sailboats.
Damon, before you ask, I've never been good at 'camera' but the new generation of digital cameras (and my son's GF) have inspired me to record at least some of the work I've done--won't promise anything soon, but if I learn a bit and like the results, I'll post some stuff in Tech Help, etc.
Y'all have a great season 'close-out' and I'll be watching the posts -- maybe I'll have something to say again later.
