S/V Clean Sweep

Clean Sweep, French Riviera, May 2002. Bicycle on back porch belongs to Susan’s brother Fred, who sailed with us for two months between Barcelona and Nice.
Black lab Jersey (who won’t be in Around Together) exits cockpit onto sidedeck to join our daughter Vanessa, who will be.

Twenty-one year old Vanessa has sailed her entire life, and Susan and I started sailing together 40 years ago in an 11-foot long styrofoam Sea Snark. Since then, we’ve owned five more boats and sailed in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico and New Zealand, where I was sent by Pacific Yachting to do a story on flotilla chartering in the Bay of Islands. Other articles PY published include a piece about the Whitbread Around the World Race, Spray (dinghy) Sailing, a Cruising Guide to Barkley Sound, a series of Offshore with a Hiking Stick (about our trip to Mexico aboard a San Juan 24) and a sidebar on Dockwise Transport. I’ve also written for 48 Degrees North, Northwest Sea, Sea, Boating News and Pacific Skipper, and was the assistant editor of Sailing Life magazine for its duration, testing nearly 40 new sailboats each year.

All that was written ashore, but on our European trip, Vanessa wrote everything aboard Clean Sweep, completing grade 10 and 11 (and French 12) through Distance Education. When we took delivery of our new Beneteau 393 in August 2001 at the northwestern tip of Atlantic France, Susan had finished her career as a merchandise manager in the clothing industry and I had just completed a three-year stint at Simon Fraser University after teaching at both secondary and elementary levels. Eighteen months, 120 ports and 20 cars later, Vanessa and I (and probably Jersey) felt we’d earned T-shirts that say “I survived Mummy’s Castles and Cathedrals Tour 2001/03.”

Afloat in the shadow of one of those castles at the mouth of a river swollen by floodwaters in the Algarve, bobbing oranges, chunks of cork and snails adrift on bamboo trees rafted around us on Christmas morning, while belowdecks we unwrapped gifts in the glow of lights, wreathes and an evergreen. We stood barefoot in the sand, champagne in hand, and welcomed the New Year watching fireworks over a fortress in another part of Portugal. At sea, we ran before full gales in the Bay of Biscay, beat along the Coast of Death, reached through the Pillars of Hercules, lay at anchor in Force 10 beneath medieval ruins, got hammered by hailstones as big as grapes in Corsica (in August), swam with octopus and waded ashore where Carthaginians, Celts, Phoenecians, Greeks and Romans had landed.

But nothing we’ve seen or done compares to what we’re all about to experience on Around Together, and without a doubt, Clean Sweep, used lately not for family outings but for sailing lessons and charters to strangers, is as excited as we are.…..

Skipper: Rob Scott

First Mate: Susan Scott

Crew: Vanessa Scott