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GenesisRED was conceived shortly after we left on our first three-year Pacific cruise in 1989 on our Valiant 40, Achates. Good as she was, there were things about the Valiant 40 that we figured could be improved upon. So, on our first offshore leg from Seattle to San Francisco, we began designing The Next Boat. We encountered Ed Rutherford and his wife Marilyn Lowry in Ensenada, Mexico. They'd taken a brief hiatus from Waterline Yachts to go cruising in Casteele, their personal Waterline 44. Like most folks, I expected all steel sailboats would be hard-chined, rough-and-ready, rustbuckets. I was astonished at how beautiful Casteele was; you'd never have guessed she was steel. As we approached in our dinghy, I said, awestruck, "Ed, she's absolutely beautiful." He replied, "We can build you one if you want." I said, "Ed, we could NEVER afford a boat like that." Little did we know... We returned from that cruise in 1992, sold Achates, and went back to our businesses and house, but it wasn't long until we realized we had to go sailing again. By this time, we'd been working on plans for The Next Boat (which we already knew would be steel, painted red, and named RED) for over four years. It took us awhile to track down Waterline, a very low-key operation at the time, and we flew down to Sidney, BC, to see if we could afford a Waterline of our own. We spent a pleasant weekend with Ed and Marilyn and returned to Juneau with a set of numbers that we figured would work. Shortly thereafter, we signed a contract for RED's construction. We worked with Ed to refine our rough design, and he did a fantastic job of taking our ideas and making them beautiful. It was a challenging, rewarding, and most enjoyable process, and Ed was a real pleasure to work with. That's how it all started.
December, 2001: RED beneath a gorgeous sunset in Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico. |
