I decided to sell my Com-Pac Suncat and buy a boat more suited to racing (i.e. Faster).  The Suncat is incredibly roomy, comfortable, easy to sail, and very easy to launch but its speed puts it at the back of the pack.  For racing this means you cross the finish line last or thereabouts then hope you correct over others with your handicap.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t go over that well with the other racers who have to face the sudden realization that they lost a race that they thought they won.  Its human nature and something that I am not above experiencing.  Also, the Suncat’s sailing is a bit too sedate to interest my teenage kids.  There are some other positives to this switch including the difference in price between what I can sell the Com-Pac Suncat for (high) and what I can buy an older suitable sloop for (low).

God must agree with these thoughts as the transition has gone swiftly and smoothly.  I remember Terry Green’s Holder 20 from the Florida 120 as being a really nice and fast boat.  Another friend of mine, Mark Milan, turned his Holder 20 into a dark hulled beauty of a museum piece.  The Holder 20 is unique in that it is a fast full keel boat on the water but a shoal draft launching boat on the trailer thanks to a retractable keel.  There were no Holder 20’s being advertised for sale so I put a “seeking sailboat” add on sailingtexas.com and quickly got four different Holder 20’s to select from both from direct sources and people who had heard or seen one for sale in their area.  Two of the boats were “race ready” and priced above my budget.  Besides, I kinda like making a boat my own by working on it.  Two others were in rougher condition but correspondingly less expensive.

I ended up buying a nice Holder 20 in Baltimore, MD for an excellent price from a gentleman who was past his sailing years.  I arranged for it to be shipped to Atlanta and will lay my eyes on it for the first time this coming Friday.  Based upon what I was told about this boat, it should be ready for the water and, hopefully, I will sail it for the first time in my sailing club’s race this Saturday.  Big advantage is in having willing hands on shore to help me rig the boat and other sailors out on the water should I screw up or just want some pictures so I can tune the boat.