During a late January 'everybody come along' beer can race on Profligate out of the Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz, one of our 22 crew was Wayne Hendryx of Brisbane. Wayne has been a sailing/cruising fool his whole life, as evidenced by the fact that his first sail to Hawaii and back was aboard a humble 26-ft Pearson Ariel. For the last six years, he and his wife Carol have owned the Hughes 46 catamaran Capricorn Cat, built and cruised extensively in Mexico and the South Pacific by Blair Grinols. We asked Wayne to review what he's done with the cat since buying her and, in particular, what he's been up to with her most recently.
WH: As you might remember, we did the 2007 Ha-Ha, then kept the boat in Mexico for 18 months. After bringing her back to Brisbane for some work, we did the 2009 Ha-Ha, then came down after the Ha-Ha in middle of the Bay, then reach up to the Bay Bridge and decide what to do. My buddies and I were always looking to the Gate and wanting to head out into the ocean, but my wife Carol would look at me and say, "No, we women want it warm." So we head for the lee of an island or headland. Treasure Island, Angel Island, the Tiburon Peninsula, Sausalito. We had a couple of magical days sailing up to Sausalito. We pulled into Schoonmaker Marina one afternoon just after our friends on the 46-ft trimaran Defiance arrived back from Hawaii. We tied up behind them and yelled "Hey, what's going on?" The next thing we knew, 20 of our 26 crew were swimming in the Bay.
38: You know that means they're all daft, don't you?
WH: [Laughter.] Every time we go for a sail, some of our crew goes swimming. I go swimming more than half the time. We go to shallow water where it's warm.
38: Warm water in the Bay? You know you're daft, too, don't you? How many times have the heads broken down?
WH: I don't want to tempt fate by answering that, but not once. We've got the $99 heads, and nobody puts paper in them, so they've been working fine. You have to remember that we live in Brisbane, which is a very green com- munity. People are organic and vegetar- ian, so we don't have a lot of 'processed beef' going through the toilets. And like Latitude advises, from time to time we pour a little salad dressing in the toilets to lube the flappers.
38: Most of the people you take sailing are locals?
WH: Virtually all of them are from Brisbane, although a bunch are friends of friends. It's so much fun sharing sail- ing on Capricorn Cat.
38: Are you going to do the 20th Anniversary Ha-Ha this year?
WH: Absolutely! John Riise, your editor at Latitude for decades, and his wife Katie are coming. They want to bring both their daughters and their daughters' boyfriends. Nic, their eldest daughter, did the Ha-Ha with us in 2007. She was between high school and college and didn't really want to come. She subsequently told us that the trip opened her eyes to a larger world and totally changed her life. She said she'd come on any future voyage with us.
38: What are you doing in Mexico now?
WH: This is our third trip to Mexico in eight months, because we've needed three three-week Mexico fixes. By the way, we've been coming to Mexico for 40 years, and we've never been asked for mordida, never had a cop bother us, never been robbed, and never seen any narco violence. But I was born and raised in San Francisco, so I know that if you want to find bad stuff, you can. But we've never had a problem in Mexico.
Our first trip was to Leon, 150 miles north of Mexico City. We then went to San Miguel Allende, a World Heritage site, then took a bus to Guanuato, another World Heritage site. We'd never traveled inland in Mexico because we've been so attached to our boat, but we had a fabulous time and realize there is so much to see. Our second trip was helping Bill and Susan Houlihan, who used to own the catamaran Sun Baby, bring their new 42-ft motorboat from San Diego to La Paz. At least a half-dozen times during the trip I heard them say, "We really don't know why we sold our sailing catamaran."
38: Why the third time?
WH: We just needed another Mexico fix, so we chose three weeks in the La Cruz/Vallarta area. We don't know why, but ever since we got here we've been put up by friends in the sailing community. Most recently we've been staying with Mai and Dave at Mai's beautiful place on the water at Marina Iguana. We're going to do a short cruise with them up to Chacala on Mai's Marquesas 56 catamaran Dolce Vita as a shakedown. Then we'll help them deliver the cat to Belvedere so she'll be on hand for the America's Cup fun.
38: And we presume you'll then start taking big groups of people out on Capricorn Cat just for the fun of it?
WH: You bet!
Read on page 76 of the March issue of Latitude 38.