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He keeps them happySAN DIEGO (UPI) - A little bit of sailing for landlubbers can be a lot of fun but the threshold at which it becomes boring or sickening is quicklyreached.That’s an important business principle followed by Captain George Falkesgaard, who established a charter and cruise business in San Diego earlier this year with the 93-foot barquentine California — a replica of the sailing ships of the 1800s.Falkesgaard said he’ll quickly refund the money and send his customers back to the dock if it appears the Pacific Ocean off San Diego will get choppy. Better no customers at all, he says, than to have a buhch of sick landlubbers who’ll spend the rest of their lives badmouthing the California.The California takes tour groups by day and cocktail cruises by night. And when there’s time Falkesgaard will charter the boat for a meeting of business executives or a convention group.Falkesgaard — who comes from a Danish family which has been involved with the sea since 1376 — admits there’s “blessed little to do on a boat” for the visitor and “the best way to turn them off is by beating my chest and telling them about all the sailing we’re going to do. About 11-2 or 2 hours into it, they begin to get turned off.”So his cruises are short and smooth — usually including a quarter-mile excursion out of Mission Bay into the Pacific. Groups can charter the boat and board in Mission Bay, then sail out into the Pacific and back into adjoining San Diego Bay and tie up at a restaurant for dinner.“The ladies don’t want to get wet sea water on them or windblown hair,” Falkesgaard explains, “they want to look as good when they arrive as they didwhen they left the hotel.” That’s why he won’t takethem unless conditions are ideal.Falkesgaard brought the California — which has a colorful history that includes use by the Navy in World War II to move Australian spotters behind Japanese lines - here from Marina Del Rey near Los Angeles, where he purchased the boat. He's already looking ahead to expanding his fleet, two yearssooner than his original timetable.It costs about $50 an hour to operate the California,but in his third month of operation Falkesgaard grossed $9,000 and began breaking even after aninitial two months of red ink.There’s a lot of interest in sailing on old-fashioned ships, according to Falkesgaard — it’s theseamanship that excites them.”The California has three masts, and the forward one has square-rigged sails. That means crew members scamper high into the rigging to unfurl thesails.“There is in the public mind,” Falkesgaard says, “something good and clean and beautiful aboutsailing ships.”• On the California a youthful crew keeps thingsshipshape while Falkesgaard’s wife Lil mixes thedrinks below decks. “You get to see the crew doing their thing — there are no winches, no mechanical rigging of any kind,” Falkesgaard proudly boasts. When the ship isn’t sailing the crew is training. “Running a charter ship is very much like an orchestra. You’ve got to practice and rehearse all thetime.”Murl Smith, a veteran of 36 years at sea, skippers the ship and the crew of six includes some community college students who are earning credits while learning seamanship.
Newspaper Details
The Herald Journal
Logan, Utah, US
Wed, Sep 01, 1976
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Rutherford B.
OH, USA 15 Feb 2022
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