Mistral

She was my first real boat, I had admired her for years as I sailed my first 2 boats. She was owned by Bob Pefley in Santa Barbara Harbor and he was the one I was "renting" slip space from for my first 2 boats. He had 40ft. slip with a awesome boat in it and I paid him some ridiculous small amount that I don't remember to keep my boats in his slip as a "tender" to keep the city happy. He also owned this Sea Mew and I wanted her badly from the first time I set eyes on her. One day he mentioned he was going to sell her and I jumped at the chance. I was delivering news papers for money so I did not have a lot but we struck a deal and she was mine. I seem to remmember it was $70/month for a year with my 16 footer as the down payment. I don't recall the exact amount but I do remember it was exactly twice what I earned every month with my paper route, so in reality it was every penny I earned for 2 years. Paper route tips were the only money I had for 2 years. He was willing to let me go negative on the loan like that so I could have this boat and to this day I still Thank him for it, although I heard he passed away many years ago in some far away land after he finished his boat and went cruising.

One of the first things I did after I paid her off was purchase the cabin from Harry Davis and put that on. Harry Davis did a wonderful job of building these boats, I don't know how many glass ones he built, mine was sail number 2005, the fifth boat he built. He had built them with a removeable cuddy cabin, so you could have a large cockpit or a small cuddy with 2 bunks below. I then purchased a roller furler for the jib. I remember the hassles to get that done, they were just not made for boats that small in those days and I had to have many parts made but it worked wonderfully and kept me off the bowsprit in weather when single-handling. I single handled this boat for 9 years with the rare exception when a "girl" went sailing with me. I met my wife by asking her to go sailing with me on this boat, that was back in 1974 we went off in the dark for a moonlight sail and all I remember was coming back in a few hours later at low tide and hitting bottom in the Santa Barbara Harbor channel, luckily the Sea Mew had a centerboard so no damage done except to my pride.

The only real trouble I ever had with her was at Santa Cruz Island in Cueva Valdez anchorage, I did not tie off the tiler and the rudder slamming back and forth for 2 days cause the rudder to break. Now that was a fun sail coming home with no rudder, I lashed a paddle to the remmants of the rudder and played with sail position for all of the 27 miles home, when I got to the harbor, I had to bring the sails down and paddle her up the harbor to her slip as I did not have enough control to sail up the channel. I learned some things that weekend about wear and tear and how to prevent it.

I wish I had more pictures of her but all I have were taken by my mother as I lazily spent my days at the harbor. And I was very surprised she had them. If you are from Santa Barbara, enjoy the pictures of the harbor as it was in the early 1970's, it has changed since then.

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