The boat is owned by Craig, Paul, Murray and Arnie. Here is a short bio on each. Paul is our newest partner having joined the boat in January 2005! Update - We may have a new partner - Dan Mcbride. We will confirm in December.

Craig began his life on the water in the pool back in Delaware. He started swimming at 4 and by 6 was state champ in the 25 yard free (it's a small state!). His dad had a small boat with an out board that they would take to the Chesapeake to picnic and swim. They also fished and camped off the boat. After moving to California in the early 80's, windsurfing became his passion. The San Francisco Bay proved to be a wonderful spot to explore and sail. He even formed a windsurfing club called "Windpower" that did trips over the weekend to different sites. Ten years ago, he started dreaming of owning a boat. Then his girlfriend, Bridget (and future wife) bought him a Sunfish for lagoon sailing in Redwood Shores in 1991. The boat would work for an hour or two and then sink. But Craig persisted and shared it with friends and his constant companion Sierra (his Golden Retriever). Finally the boat would sail no more and was retired. In early 1999, he purchased another small trailerable sail boat. A homemade dory of 20' that could sail parts of the bay, lakes and sloughs. It has a "505" rig and can carry three comfortably. The "Hunky Dory" proved to be a huge painting project, but after many hours of removing the old paint and putting on new, she was ready for first sail in Lake Elizabeth in Fremont. And boy could she sail!! After a few early capsizes, Craig got her number and sailed the SF bay many times with her. In the summer of 2000, Craig knew it was time for the big jump. He started scouring Lattitude 38 for the right boat. He contacted his friends Geoff and Arnie and they decided to begin the hunt. With in a few weeks they had located a potential boat called "Addiction". She had previously been owned by three guys who bought her to race and cruise the bay. They had done a great job of taking care of her and after a few test sails and a successful survey she was purchased. As Craig once said, " This is a dream come true". Over the last seven months, she has been a dream!!!

Murray McLeod’s Sailing Bio:

I began sailing in Lido-14s (more or less self-taught) in 1974 after watching sailboats racing in the High Sierra Regatta at Huntington Lake.  It sure looked like a lot of fun, and in such a beautiful setting!  I also bought a Laser sailboat about 1976, and sailed the Laser and the Lido (“Thunder Chicken”) mostly on Millerton and Huntington lakes, east of Fresno, and for a short stint in Dallas, Texas, until about 1978. 

At that time I decided to “chuck-it-all” and I moved down to St. Thomas in the USVI where I got a crewing position on a 63’ gaff-rigged cutter (“Tern IV,” a vintage wooden Claude Worth design).  I sailed around on this boat for a couple months, exploring the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and then helped sail the boat down to St. Lucia in the Windward Islands for the hurricane season.  Along the way we stopped at most of the larger islands in the chain (Nevis, St. Kitts, Guadalupe, Antigua, Domenica, and Martinique), and this started a long-term love affair with sailing in the Caribbean!.

I returned to reality in 1979 and sold the “Thunder Chicken” to purchase a 17’ Thistle class sailboat in 1980.  At that time, the Thistle was one of the most active one-design racing classes in California, and we campaigned that boat (“Screaming Yellow Zonker”) fairly successfully at regattas all over Calif.  Our “high-water” mark at that time was a second place finish at the Thistle Pacific Coast Championships in 1982 (with my soon wife-to-be, Linda, as my front crew).  Around this time I started to sail on larger keel boats as well, and was part-owner of a Merit-22 sailboat from about 1985-1988.  But big-boat racing never held the same attraction of one-design racing, as handicaps and larger forces requiring more crew seem to diminish the fun factor.

We moved to Madison Wisconsin in 1989 and the Thistle came along with us.  We were quickly assimilated into a newly-formed Thistle fleet on Lake Monona in Madison.  That’s one of the nice things about being in one-design sailing; there is always a group of new friends who sail the same type boat waiting wherever you go!

We lasted three winters in Madison (did try a little ice-boating one winter!), but then bailed-out for the warmer waters of Lake Alatoona northwest of Atlanta in 1992.  Once again the Thistle came along, and the Thistle sailors of the Atlanta Yacht Club provided us with that ready-made group of new friends.   I also bought another Laser while in Atlanta, and raced that and the Thistle fairly successfully until self-employment put a damper on racing activities. 

We left the Screaming Yellow Zonker behind in Atlanta (after 20 years of ownership!), when we returned to Calif. in 2001.  I was in a non-equity partnership in an Emeryville-based Jeanneau-41 for a while, and in fact, I lived on that boat, “Chaise á Voille,” (never could figure-out what that means!) for a few months before buying our house in Vallejo.   I then met up with the great bunch of guys who owned the Newport-30, “Addiction” around 2003, and have been a member of that partnership ever since. 

I have enjoyed sailing the Addiction in San Francisco Bay for the last several years, while still racing the Laser occasionally (I’m now a Grand-Master in that class, by age only!).   Also, I still crew for Fresno friends on Thistles occassionally, especially at the High Sierra Regatta every year on the weekend when I’m not sailing the Laser!  In between all that, we have also managed to do a couple bare-boat charters in the BVI on a Jeanneau-45 and on a Lagoon-38 catamaran in the last few years. 

Sailing Motto:  Wind that is not filling sails is wasted!