When Ray decided to buy a sailboat 30 years ago, he didn't see much
sense in going the usual route - buying a smaller boat than he wanted and
spending most of his time working to pay for it rather than sailing it.
So he saved his money and when he retired he got the boat built that he
wanted: a custom Ted Brewer-designed 60-ft sloop.
Thayer had the boat designed to withstand the rigors of the BOC Round the World Race. Yet he also wanted the comforts of a cruising boat. The marriage of the two ideas is a craft whose wide beam, plumb bow and gargantuan rig (93-foot mast, 4,400-square-foot spinnaker) reflects much of the current thinking in BOC design - but which Thayer is the first to admit is way too heavy to be competitive with the all-out racers. Wild Thing tips the scales at 51,000 pounds, about twice the weight of a top-end French BOC racer. But it also has a microwave, TV/VCR and 15-cubic-foot freezer aboard, in addition to other amenities.
Thayer intended to participate in the '94-'95 BOC, but the boat's growing pains put those plans on hold. For awhile, it seemed like something major would go wrong every time the boat went out on a shakedown cruise - or as Thayer calls them, 'breakdown cruises'. The keel to hull joint opened up on the very first sail, for example. Another time, the mast came crashing down. The boom has broken twice. Thayer's remedy is to replace the broken part with one that's twice as strong - and keep doing that until it doesn't break anymore.
In 1994, Thayer sailed Wild Thing to Hawaii and back. In '95, he made an 11,000-mile solo voyage to Mexico, the South Seas and back to Washington. Thayer feels he and the boat are finally ready to test themselves in competition, and the SSS TransPac seemed a perfect venue to do that. Besides, says Ray, "It's something to do while I wait for the next BOC."
Navigation: GPS, Maptech computer, sextant backup; Steering: autopilot; Food: Normal fare. "I have fishing lines out when I'm sailing. It's not unusual for me to come in with the freezer more full than when I left."
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