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Only smooth sailingon the CaliforniaBy CI.ARENCE ZAITZSAN 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 why the 93-foot sailing ship California only puts out in pleasant weather and why her excursions to sea are kept short.Captain George Falkesgaard this year began running tour cruises by day, cocktail sails at night out of San Diego aboard the barquentine — a replica of sailing ships of the 1800s.If the ocean appears to be getting too choppy, he quickly refunds his customers’ money and returns them to the dock. Better no customers at all, than sick landlubbers bad-mouthing the California.So far as the passengers are concerned, Falkesgaard concedes ‘‘(here is blessed little to do aboard a boat.“About 14 or 2 hours into it. they begin to gel turned off, said Falkesgaard, who comes from a Danish family which has been involved with the sea since 1376.So his cruises are short and smooth — usually including a quarler-mile excursion out of Mission Bay into the Pacific Groups can charter the boa and board in Mission Bay, ther. sail out into the Pacific and back into adjoining San Diego Bay and tie up at a restaur an' for dinner.He will take them only if conditions are ideal because, as he puts it, “The ladies don’’ want to get wet sea water on them or windblown hair. They want to look as good when the\ arrive as they did when the\ left the hotel.The California has a colorfu' history. She was used by the Navy in World War II to move Australian spotters behind Japanese line.Falkesgaard operated in the red only two months after purchasing her in Marina Del Hey near I,us Angeles and bringing her here. He broke even grossing fy.uuo in the third month. Now he is thinking about expanding his one-ship fleet.The California is manned by six community college students and skippered by Murl Smith, a veteran of 36 years at sea, has three masts. The forward one has square-rigged sails. Crew-men scamper high in the rigging to unfurl them.This is the main attraction. Said Falkesgaard of his passengers, “It’s the seamanship that excites them.There is in the public mind something good and clean and beautiful about sailing ships.You get to see the crew doing their thing — there are no winches, no mechanicalrigging of any kind.
Newspaper Details
Cullman Times Democrat
Cullman, Alabama, US
Thu, Sep 23, 1976
Page 26
Full Page
Clipped by
Rutherford B.
OH, USA 15 Feb 2022
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