The Start
It all started when…
Eric speaking here. Some ideas, no matter how crazy they seem just feel inevitable.
In 2012 I moved out to San Francisco after college to start a job project managing hardware in Silicon Valley. That very summer I took sailing lessons and knew I was in trouble.
I was in love. Deeply in love!
Before the second day of sailing lessons was over I was already looking at boats. I was paying about $2k per month for 400sqft of white walls and white carpet in Silicon Valley and the idea of owning my very own boat and living on that instead was irresistible. 3 months later I had an old 1992 Beneteau. Never having sailed anything bigger than the 20ft outboard powered instruction boat, I happily took the keys and did the 60 mile delivery myself. I couldn’t believe At 23 I was a proud boat owner!
I can’t say exactly when the idea of sailing around the world struck. Once I had a sailboat, the obvious next step was always that I was going to sail around the world. There was never a question in my mind.
Why the hell wouldn't I?
After a year of living on the Beneteau I decided that I wanted something purpose built for my plans and that’s when I starting looking at Outremers. There were three for sale in the Pacific with the closest one being French Polynesia so that’s where I went!
Without knowing much about catamarans but trusting the opinions of close friends in the sailing community I liquidated everything I had to get Zephyr. With exactly 6 weeks of vacation and not a day more I flew to French Polynesia in 2015 to start the long delivery home back to San Francisco. Never bother that I hadn’t done any ocean crossings before. We’ll figure it out! My best friend Johnny, Jason and Lewis joined in for the trip home. We left Papeete with about 450lbs of beer or 2% of Zephyrs displacement.
Without a doubt that journey was quite the test! The main sail ripped in half on the equator leaving us 1000 miles from anything without the primary horse power for the boat. It took 3 days to sew her back together but we did it! 5 weeks and 5 days later we arrived in San Francisco just in time for me to go back to work on Monday :) Back then I put a video together that summarized the spirit of the journey.
Then came three years of getting Zephyr into tip top shape to go back out for a world cruise. Finally in April 2018 Zephyr left San Francisco to head up to the wild north of Alaska and so began the Voyage of the Zephyr!
Since leaving SF I’ve picked up crew along the way having between 2 and 6 total on board. Without a doubt sharing the experience with those that I have sailed aboard Zephyr as well as friends we’ve made on land along the way has been the most rewarding part of the journey!
