BIANCO

In the late 1970s we had a 41 foot ketch which we bought brand new. Never again will I buy a new boat. The dealers advertise that the boats are “completely” outfitted and in “sail away” condition. There are no VHF radios, radars, Loran receivers or GPS. There is a crappy undersized anchor but no chain. An anchor without chain is as useful as an accordion in a lifeboat. There are no life jackets, flares or smoke signals. In short it will cost almost as much to complete the new boat as was the initial purchase. When people commented on the latest addition we were so tired of quoting dollar amounts we devised the unit of measurement of Unit. A Unit was $500. We’d casually say that was two or three and a half units. It seemed to take away some of the pain. As an example a stove with oven, in the likely event you wanted one of those, was about two units.

FYI, there is an upside to buying a new boat. The launching and naming of your newest toy. After much thought we named her Bianco. We wanted a name in some foreign language. Preferably a Romance language such as Spanish, French, Portuguese or Italian. Bianco is white in Italian and the boat was in fact white. There are  three types of vermouth. Italian sweet red, French white dry and a obscure third Italian sweet which was, at that time, our favorite aperitif, over ice. When some person who we didn't care for, we were a bit more elitist back then, we would simply say that it means white in Italian and let it drop.

We were moored in Long Beach Harbor near the Queen Mary. This was not only a pain in the butt being you needed to hail a intermittently water taxi there was no shore power and the drunken water skiers used your boat for beer bottle throwing practice. It was downright  dangerous. When the occasional rain water poured down the LA “river” it was Tsunami time.  We finally secured a slip at The Chowder Barge when it was still moored by the Procter and Gamble plant at West Seventh Street in Long Beach.

When we pulled into the slip for the first time it appeared to the helmsman, me, that the slip was maybe not wide enough. I was cold and tired and hungry and needed to discharge a few gallons of used beer so I just gunned the diesel and went in. Our bow sprit almost went through the large window by the booths and everyone in the booths made arrangements for abandoning ship. Long story short, we actually fit in the slip and we didn't add additional ventilation to the restaurant and I got a chance to relieve and feed myself and warm up. We moored at The Chowder Barge for about three years before moving to Wilmington. 
We ended up mooring the old girl  on Treasure Island abutting Naples Island in Long Beach at a friends house who had a nice boat dock. He also had a pool in his living room and a few Ferraris in his garage.  
By 1981 my life was becoming very much like a Kafka story so we sold her to friends who coveted her very much. 
She was a beauty.

After about six months without a sailboat I was miserable, so we bought Merrymaid the Downeast schooner which I owned  and lived aboard for thirty five years.