We’ve gotten in a few lively afternoon sails along the West Shore with winds in the 15-25 kt. range and temps in the 80s, so it really feels like summer is upon us here in the High Sierra. The lake level is high and it seems like there are fewer boats out, so you kinda feel like you have the place to yourself — which is just fine by me!
I’m making a point of revisiting a number Lake Tahoe classics this summer, including a yummy breakfast at The Old Post Office in Carnelian Bay with my pal Ancil, dinner with Debbie at Chambers Landing (also yummy and very family-friendly … just a lovely, laid-back Tahoe summer vibe), and one day just hanging out at the south end of Tahoe by Baldwin Beach with Ancil and our buddy John aboard La Crapaud. We anchored in 10 ft. and lolled about in the shade of the bimini for the whole day, sharing stories and watching the world go by. The Baldwin Beach area — tucked away in the extreme southwest corner of Lake Tahoe — is great for hanging out on the hook because the boat traffic is much further off shore as folks cut across from South Tahoe marinas to the must-see spot on the lake, Emerald Bay.
I rowed the dinghy in to shore at Baldwin and explored the wetlands, where evidently the Tahoe Yellow Cress is struggling to survive and efforts are being made to control invasive species as well. The water temp was about 67º F. on Ancil’s gauge, so I went for a swim in the shallows, then sat on the inflatable dinghy and dried off in the sun.
Later in the afternoon, we motored around Fannette Island in Emerald Bay just to bask in the grandeur of that amazing place before heading home for the night.
We’re planning on going boat camping once the 4th of July crowds thin, and I’m looking forward to watching the light change on the Sierra Nevada and the Milky Way to appear. Until then …
My sailing pals Ancil and John invited me to come up and help them launch La Crapaud, Ancil’s 1968 Columbia 36, a William Crealock design first produced in 1967. I always smile when I see the name La Crapaud, because it means “The Toad” in French. La Crapaud is actually in pretty good shape for a craft of her vintage that hasn’t had a full restoration, and that can be attributed to Ancil’s incredible mechanical skills. Inside, he has a re-powered her with a new Kubota diesel, put in modern plumbing throughout, and installed a new electric windlass and a propane oven, which he uses to bake apple pies and roast things for overnight stays on his “condo on the lake.” With the three of us pitching in, the launch went very well, and we had her rigged and ready to sail in about 2.5 hours. It was a very calm, warm, bright Tahoe morning, so at 11:30 a.m., we motored over to Chambers Landing, where the friendly gals there picked us up at the guest buoy and quickly got us settled with cool refreshments at the bar.
We had the place to ourselves, so we chatted up the young ladies about what it’s like to work at Chambers in the summers, and they regaled us with stories of how crazy busy it gets, especially once the kids are out of school.
One story the young ladies shared with us that really stuck out to me is how often they get the question, “So, where’s the lake?” from tourists. Like, did you not look at a map before driving up this way??? Evidently, some tourists think that Chambers Landing is actually situated on some inland ocean, and that “Lake Tahoe” must be nearby. You cannot make this stuff up.
After our drinks, we motored south towards Camp Richardson — where La Crapaud lives in the summer — dipping into Meeks Bay and Rubicon Bay and along D.L. Bliss State Park (which is unfortunately closed for the summer) as we had a few hours until Ancil’s partner would pick us up on the Camp Rich dock for the drive back to Obexer’s to collect the trailer and take it back down to Reno. All in all, it was a beautiful day, and just gliding along in the shade of La Crapaud’s large bimini and checking out the sights made it feel like we were on an extended Disneyland Jungle Cruise.
Back around 2007, I was starting to shift from a single-minded obsession with short-board windsurfing at Washoe Lake, Rio Vista and Maui to something that I could share with my lovely bride, Debbie, and so my thoughts turned toward monohull sailing. As luck would have it, around that time I received an invite from Fred McElroy, a longtime Renoite and Tahoe sailor, to go for a cruise aboard his storied Catalina 270, Grand Cru. I stocked up on a few bottles of Rombauer Chardonnay, which I’d heard was one of Fred’s favorites, and before long, I found myself as “cru” sailing from Tahoe City Marina to points south while engaged in great conversations with this affable skipper, a natural raconteur whose many years of plying Tahoe’s waters provided a solid education for a novice like myself. At some point in our adventures (and likely fueled by a glass or two of yummy Rombauer), I blurted out, “Hey, Fred, if you ever think of selling this boat, I want first right of refusal!” Serendipitously, in the fall of 2010, I got the call I’d been hoping for. Before long, the original Grand Cru became Splendido, but only after the complete name-retiring-and-changing ceremony where a goodly quantity of Veuve Cliquot washed the decks and offerings were made to Neptune to bless the boat and its future crew. So, with deep and enduring gratitude to that skipper who gave me my shot at sailing a good old boat on Lake Tahoe, it is my pleasure to share the following interview with you.
Q&A with Fred McElroy, Skipper, Grand Cru
Q: How did you come to own your lovely Beneteau First 285, Grand Cru? What year was she built? What is her Lake Tahoe history?
A: Our boat, Grand Cru, is a Beneteau First 285 that was built in 1988. The original owners were Harvey Fennel and Mark Combs, the owners of Reno’s Dickson Realty, who had purchased her in the Bay Area and brought her up to Lake Tahoe. The boat was first named Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s famous horse. Mark sold his ownership in the boat and his interest in Dickson Realty and he and his wife Fianna took the next few years and sailed around the world. When the boat was later purchased by John Turner and Heidi Olson, they changed her name to No Rules.
Q: How did you start sailing? How long ago?
A: Being born and growing up in Carmel on the California coast, literally the “son of a son of a sailor,” it was inevitable that I would spend a lot of my time on the water. My namesake, Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Kenneth McElroy (an admiral-to be, though that’s a story for another time) graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1922. He was a highly decorated officer in the U.S. Navy until his death in 1942 in the South Pacific.
I did a lot of windsurfing in my early days and eventually started taking U.S. Sailing Association sailing classes in the Bay Area in 1991 with my boat partner at the time, Rich Cook. We had the same interests in windsurfing, offshore blue water sailing and cruising. We eventually bought a 1978 Catalina 27, Chablis, from Dr. Steve Schiff, who had her moored in Lake Tahoe. Dr. Schiff then bought a beautiful Catalina 309 and named her Premier Cru. Rich and I sold Chablis and in 1997, I bought a 1993 Catalina 270 called Ego Inflation from Peter Krueger (owner of Double Trouble, a J 124 and five-time Rolex® Big Boat Series Champion out of San Francisco) and then we (properly) changed the C270’s name to Grand Cru. From that point on, Steve Schiff and I were known as the “Cru Brothers.”
I eventually sold Grand Cru in 2010 to wonderful couple that has given her the love and attention she deserves. These days, the Catalina 270 Splendido can be seen skimming the beautiful clear blue waters of Lake Tahoe in all her glory along the West Shore and points beyond.
Q: What kind of improvements or upgrades to your boat or trailer have you made since you’ve owned her?
A: We purchased a trailer shortly after acquiring the Beneteau. It was the best move ever. It allows us to bring her down to the valley during the winter months to perform routine maintenance and other projects during the off season. We replaced the mast, spreaders and rigging in 2020 after the mast snapped on the buoy in a severe storm. We purchased new North Sail NPL Touring sails (main and foresail) in 2021, installed new LED lights and new cushions throughout. We rebuilt the binnacle in 2023, and installed new hatch covers in early 2024. There’s no two ways about it: sailboats are a labor of love. I enjoy “messing about in boats,” as Kenneth Grahame put it in The Wind in the Willows. I also expect things to work properly and I like to avoid mishaps.
Q:I gather you have had some spectacular mast and hull challenges over the years. Can you tell us about them?
A: The mast snapped during a summer storm in 2020, which was unfortunate, but we pulled it all together and found a great new mast to replace it with. In the spring of 2023, I decided to tackle a good-sized project, which was re-fiberglassing the area around the keel to take are of a minor “smile” that had developed over the years. I spent days on the trailer, glassing and sanding and glassing and sanding to get it just right. One of the best things about Lake Tahoe is that it’s not a humid environment, the lake is 99.99% pure fresh water from melted snow, so it’s very clean, which helps preserve the integrity of the equipment on the boat. We are also fortunate to be able to bring the boat down to the valley during the harsh winter months at Tahoe to be sure she is properly looked after.
Q: What do you love most about Grand Cru and sailing Lake Tahoe?
A: Probably my Cru. I have had some of the most wonderful folks on the boat that appreciate the beauty of Lake Tahoe, the joy of sailing and a good glass of Rombauer Chardonnay. Sailing Lake Tahoe is beautiful and generally peaceful, although it can be challenging at times. Nothing is better than sailing along in 15 knots of wind looking at snow-capped mountains, crystal-clear water and an occasional sailboat while enjoying a nice glass of wine. Early morning coffees on the hook off Sugar Pine State Park, spectacular sunsets and BBQ on the boat at anchor, anchoring offshore to listen to the Commons Beach Concerts at Tahoe City in the summer and sailing back home in the dark or by the light of the moon.
Q: What would you change about your boat now? What upgrades do you have planned?
A: Probably an autopilot. Although Lake Tahe is not too big it would be a nice luxury to have aboard. Our friend Ancil has one on his 36-ft. Le Crapaud, and I must admit, it is nice.
Q:What is your most fun or interesting time on Lake Tahoe?
A: We belong to a group called Full Moon Maniacs that does events on full moons. We have had a few kayak trips during full moons on Lake Tahoe where Grand Cru is the support boat/wine barge! We have had 20-30 kayaks rafted up or gathered for a BBQ on a beach. I think nowadays we tend to enjoy more intimate evenings and overnight stays at Sugar Pine Point with friends.
Q: What was your worst experience sailing on Lake Tahoe?
A: Two years ago, on an evening sail with a fairly experienced crew, a summer thunderstorm popped up over South Lake Tahoe. Typically, those storms stay south and dissipate as they move north over cool water, but this one did not not. We normally take a southern route to Sugar Pine Point for dinner and a swim, but this time, I decided to head north because it “didn’t look right.” We were sailing north in a nice breeze. One of my guests looked at me a little funny as I sat at the helm. “What’s up?” I asked. She said a bolt of lightning had just flashed across the sky behind us. No bueno. I headed to Sunnyside and dropped the sails. I said we needed to get to calm waters and closer to shore, so we started motoring towards Tahoe City, which was not far away. There was only one other boat on the lake: another experienced crew aboard Tahoe Cruz, a 50-ft Santa Cruz charter boat. Their sails were down, and they were headed back to Tahoe City Marina, too. As we were about round the point toward Tahoe City, a gust of wind hit us broadside under bare poles (no sails) and put the port rail in the water. I had never experienced a boat rounding up under bare poles before. We made it to Tahoe City Marina, tied up at the dock and had dinner, a glass of wine and watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen on Lake Tahoe. When the storm passed, we set sail and sailed back to Obexer’s Marina in the dark. Beautiful evening.
Q: What would you tell people about sailing Lake Tahoe they might be surprised to know?
A: If you can sail at Lake Tahoe and on the San Francisco Bay, you can sail anywhere in the world.
• Tahoe Yacht Club is older than the St. Francis Yacht Club. Members of Tahoe Yacht Club (est. 1925) founded the St. Francis Yacht Club in 1927.
• Many members at Tahoe Yacht Club are world-class sailboat racers. I have had America’s Cup racers on my boat. Boats like the Antrim 27, J 124, Farr 40s, Melges 24 and J 24 have all competed at high levels on Lake Tahoe. It’s also been home to the Catalina 27 Championship races Gold Cup, the U.S. Laser National Championships and the U.S. Singlehanded Championships.
• World-famous SV Delos (the #2 sailing channel on YouTube, with 700,000 subscribers worldwide) crew Brady Trautman and his partner Alex Blue have established a wonderful sailing school called Cruisers Academy in Tahoe City.
• A group of mostly West Shore sailors have formed a very informal club called Big Blue Tahoe Yacht Club (BBTYC). The mission of the Big Blue Tahoe Yacht Club is to celebrate the joy of sailing at Lake Tahoe and the community of sailors who integrate sailing into their busy lives, whether through boat ownership, partnership or sailing companionship, volunteering, and supporting those who sail with technical skills, a helping hand, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine/soda and an unwavering spirit of adventure.
Look for the BBTYC (Big Blue Tahoe Yacht Club) on Facebook! Sea ya! — Fred McElroy, Skipper, Grand Cru
Thank you, Fred, for sharing your stories, and we’ll see you and Alice out on the water. Until those balmy breezes blow again, fair winds and smooth sailing! DB
Longtime readers may remember the first of my “Friendships” posts about Love Boat, Zack Sizemore’s great Catalina 22. She’s a sweet Tahoe pocket cruiser that Zack has put heart and soul into restoring over the years, and now she’s up for sale as Zack’s business, Wake Almanor, has taken off.
Zack’s asking $5K for this little beauty, and notes she’s a “1988 Catalina 22 wing keel with a trailer. Honda 8 hp outboard serviced annually. Rolling furler with a fairly new 120% jib, Seoladair boomkicker, BBQ, pop top. Fresh water only. “Tahoe Only” sealed. Comes with lots of extra parts and tools.” Interested sailors can contact Zack for details and a showing at (530) 409-8700.
Whenever I think of this boat, I can’t help hearing Jack Jones crooning the Love Boat theme from 1977:
Love, exciting and new Come aboard. We’re expecting you. And Love, life’s sweetest reward. Let it flow, it floats back to you.
Love Boat soon will be making another run The Love Boat promises something for everyone Set a course for adventure, Your mind on a new romance.
And Love won’t hurt anymore It’s an open smile on a friendly shore. Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
If there’s anyone I’ve encountered who embodies the phrase, “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,” it would be sailor Gary Hamilton of Wabamun Lake in western Canada. I have followed Gary’s Sailing in western Canada blog for years, and each visit leaves me in bewildered awe at the way Gary has tricked out his lovely Catalina 270, Nothing Like This, with ingenious upgrades and improvements to the already wonderful Gerry Douglas design. He’s also one of the most generous folks out there on the Catalina 270 forums, keeping the conversation going about all things related to sailing the C270. I reached out to Gary for some insights on his philosophy and process, and he was kind enough to share, in words and photos, his passion for making the most of his time on the water.
Q&A with Gary Hamilton, Skipper, Nothing Like This
Q: How did you come about owning Nothing Like This?
A: I was looking on Yachtworld one day, saw a 270 for sale in Denver and this adventure began. The trailer was home-made, and the border guys wouldn’t let it into Canada, so it went to Seattle, got tossed in the big lake (ed note: the Pacific Ocean), the trailer got hauled across on a flatbed, the boat got motored to Vancouver, reunited and driven home. Take that, border people!
Q: Did you own a sailboat before you bought her? How did you start sailing, and how long ago?
A: I’ve owned boats almost all my life. I had a brand-new MacGregor 26 in 1993, and discovered a tippy, smallish boat with no headroom. But it trailers easily and we went a lot of places with it.
Q: I know you’ve done a bunch of upgrades to your boat and trailer over the years … can you give us a rundown on them?
A: The list is long quite long. A full RayMarine electronics installation with autopilot and tactical. A home-made top down furler with home-made bow sprit for the asymmetrical kite, upgraded virtually every sail-handling system, and added back winches, making it a pleasure to sail. Designed and built a dodger and a Bimini while learning how to sew; bought a TechSew machine that is cheap offshore and finicky as all get out. Solar installation, and pretty much redesigned the trailer from the ground up, lowering the boat over 20” and allowing a trailer launch, with three axles for on the road peace of mind.
Q: Are you an engineer by training? A lot of your projects seem quite involved. Are they projects anyone could do?
A: I am a technical director for an electronics company by trade. I have no issue diving into almost any kind of project; the trick is to do sufficient research, understand, or go find out the issues that exist for what you want to accomplish, have a goal, and be prepared to make and correct mistakes. The trailer project was way, way out of my league, but the basic shape was already there, and the placement of the new axles was a calculated guess. The boat was close and has had two relatively minor adjustments since. The dodger was probably an order of magnitude harder; I had literally no idea what I was doing, had really never operated a sewing machine, and I spent a good month building stuff, watching and copying ways of doing stuff. Now I can do a French seam. Is it straight? It’s straight enough for me.
Q: What do you love most about Nothing Like This and sailing Wabamun Lake?
I’d rather be at the coast. Wabamun Lake is an inland lake that is close to the foothills. It’s shallow, so there isn’t much fetch, there’s no current, the wind shifts can be 180 degrees, which is why there’s a top-down furler for the kite, and when weather rolls in, it sometimes does so with a vengeance. What I love the most is that I can be on the boat in 35 minutes from my house, and the sun doesn’t set till 11 in July.
Q: What would you change about your boat/what upgrades do you have planned?
A: I’m not happy with the bilge pump arrangement, and will likely yank it all out and do something else. If I were to change anything, I’d make the berth access like that on a 28mkii and get rid of the door. This business of turning sideways and contorting yourself into a hernia to get in there is rather annoying.
Q: What was your most fun or interesting time on Wabamun Lake?
A: I’d have to say exercising the controls on the boat to the fullest and having people try to keep up. No smugness there — ha ha!
Q: What was your worst experience sailing western Canada?
A: Breaking rudder cables on the MacGregor. There are lots of shallow spots, and you need to know where they are. We hit something in the Catalina 270 last year (that was a first!) and put a little divot in the keel. Yikes!
Q: What would you tell people about sailing western Canada they might be surprised to know?
A: It’s like sailing a mountain lake. Don’t tack on the wind shifts. We had some world class sailors on the MacGregor once, and they didn’t believe it, and we were dead last on the Wednesday night series, where we were usually top five. Go figure.
Q: Any final thoughts?A: I still think that everybody out west should plan a get-together at the coast. Get a mortgage and buy some fuel. Let’s go!
Thanks so much for the inspiration, Gary. Fair winds and following seas! DB
One of my favorite sailboats on Lake Tahoe is Zack Sisemore’s Love Boat, a 1988 Catalina 22 sailing out from Tahoe’s north shore. In 2013, Zach and a gal he was dating at the time bought the boat from a California woman whose sailor husband had passed on, and Zack’s “barn find” turned out to be the sprightly sailing vessel you see here.
How bad did Zack want it? “I sold my grandpa’s old truck and my parachute to fund the boat. It was hard to part ways with Grandpa’s old red truck, which had about 315,000 miles on a twisted frame, but I figure Grandpa would be proud that it was going to help fund a sailboat.” he said.
Zack got the boat for a pretty good price, especially considering that it came with “an SUV full of sailboat stuff the owner’s wife had found in the garage in addition to all the stuff that was already in the boat. She also included a 4” stack of records, service manuals, and receipts, which tells me that this boat had been well taken care of,” Zack added.
But, as with all things related to sailing, there were hidden expenses that popped up along the way, including a snapped drive shaft on his dad’s truck that cost $700 to fix.
What impressed me most about Love Boat, though, was the way Zack immediately went to work figuring out how to repair a significant void in her wing keel, filling it with foam down to the lead and epoxy-and-fiberglassing it over and fairing it until she was as good (or better than) new.
Debbie and I see Zach and his friends cruising along in Love Boat a couple of times a summer, always with smiles as big as Tahoe and friendly waves as we pass. I look forward to getting back on the water when the pandemic is over, and hope to see this “friend ship” riding the Tahoe blue once again.
Q&A with Zack Sisemore, Skipper, Love Boat
Q: What do you love most about Love Boat?
A: I love introducing first-time sailors to my boat. Teaching friends to sail is very entertaining! Watching someone’s eyes about to pop out of their head the first time they heel over brings me so much joy. Fumbling with the cleat hitch, oversteering through a tack, wrapping the winch counter clockwise are also comedy. But the absolute best is when the mistakes get cleaned up and seeing the satisfaction of friends beginning to understand sailing.
Q: What would you change about your boat? A: The Love Boat will never be a perfect vessel but I’m happy with that. At the top of my list would be reupholstered interior cushions. Just a bit dated and falling apart. Next would be lighting. I don’t sail too much in the dark, but I need navigation and anchor lights. And lastly, my poor mainsail is on its last leg. Would love to go with in-mast or lazy jacks but doesn’t really make sense on the old girl.
Q: What was your most fun or interesting time on Lake Tahoe? A: July 4, 2018 comes to mind. First time I took mom out. The wind was consistently blowing 15-20 knots. It was my mom’s first sail. I had the sails damn near touching the water for about 5 hours straight and not once did my mom seem uncomfortable or scared.
Another date that comes to mind is July 4, 2019. It wasn’t a sail, but my roommate Griffin and I lived on the sailboat at anchor for a week while renting out our house. We were both working long hours. No dinghy to get to and from the boat. We’d meet on the beach after work. Griffin would sit on an inner tube and I’d tow him out on the paddleboard with a rope connected to my ankle. Silly but fun.
Q: What was your worst experience sailing Lake Tahoe? A: There was a lot of trial and error when I first bought the Love Boat as I had ZERO sailing experience and maybe 20 minutes on a power boat. The first couple of years, I didn’t have a buoy, so I had to launch the boat every time. I think it was summer of 2015 or 2016 and the lake level was very low, so I decided to launch at Obexer’s on an east wind day.
Well … Obexer’s boat launch faces east! It’s also a crowded fuel dock! Also, I had to launch alone as my now ex-wife couldn’t drive trailer or boat! So, in the chaos of it all, I launched, leaving my cell phone in the truck. Tied up really quick and moved the truck just outta the way. The waves were pounding the poor boat into the dock and the mast was swinging so hard the it too was hitting the dock, so I had to get the hell outta there. So here’s the scene: I’m circling the buoy field trying to give Sara instructions on how/where to park the truck. I have no phone, so I have to yell instructions as I’m circling around. There’s nowhere to tie up without beating up my boat. The guys at Obexer’s were not any help at all. After 45 minutes of circling, I tie up at the fuel dock, back the truck into the launch, and called it a day. Lesson learned: don’t launch in heavy water and if you do, have someone with you who can actually help. Your plan has to be bulletproof in heavy water.
Q: What would you tell people about Tahoe that they might be surprised to know? A: Lake Tahoe’s average depth of 988 feet is a shocker to most.
Sailing Lake Tahoe on a good old boat 