Even Stranger Times... I Bought a Boat

After the outbreak of the coronavirus in mid-March 2020, the country (and in fact the world) has been in various degrees of “shelter-in-place” for months. Social-distancing and mask-wearing have become common everyday practices in most communities.

For me, here in the Bay Area, I’ve been mostly confined to my 1-bedroom apartment. I take daily walks and make bi-weekly trips to the grocery store. A big part of me misses my house during this time. I’d love to be sitting out in the backyard, enjoying the breeze and the barbecue. But without a job, I know living in my house right now would not make economic sense.

My apartment isn’t that bad; it has many windows and quite a bit of space, except for the tiny kitchen. In normal times, I wouldn’t mind the small kitchen because I rarely cook. But in these quarantine days, I’m cooking every day so a bigger kitchen would be nice.

A highlight over the last three months has been going sailing once or twice a week with a friend of mine from OCSC Sailing. Although OCSC was closed, we had access to privately-owned boat, a J24 called Midnight Run. This was a great arrangement until my friend moved back home to the east coast.

But… coincidentally, the owner of Midnight Run told me that he was planning to sell the boat so that he could focus on his efforts on his other J24.

I wasn’t really looking to buy a boat, but I realized this was a great opportunity for a number of reasons:

1) The owner is a friend whom I trust. He also works at the Club as Head of Fleet Service. He has put a lot of work into refurbishing Midnight Run.

2) If for some reason OCSC doesn’t open for a while, I could use the boat to teach private lessons or take people sailing for a small fee as a way to make some money during the pandemic.

3) If OCSC does open, I can leave the boat in the fleet and participate in a “revenue sharing” agreement with the Club as a way to help fund my owning and operating costs.

4) I can learn about boat ownership and boat maintenance on a small, relatively simple boat that I already know pretty well.

6) The boat is small enough that I can single-hand sail her around the San Francisco Bay.

So, with minimal hesitation, I talked to the owner and we arranged a deal! On June 26, 2020, I became the proud owner of the J24 “Midnight Run.”

Since I’m not traveling right now due to the coronavirus, I'll use this website to document some of my local adventures on Midnight Run.

But first, I have a few boat jobs to do...

Midnight Run. She’s a J24 keelboat. Although I’m the new owner, she currently is active in the OCSC Sailing School fleet.