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Foghorn May 2008 MIGHTY CHICKEN
A long, long time ago, a friend of mine, whom we nicknamed Bosun, let me have the honour of holding the tiller for a moment. It was my reward for kayaking with him most of the night on choppy water. The sailboat which he chartered lost its mooring line and the two of us were searching for her. Other friends stuck with the original plan and went to a night club. In the morning, the other friends had hangovers. Bosun and I had two sailboats swinging around the mooring buoy. We found another boat not far from ours between reeds on the leeward side of the lake. The euphoria from the possession of the first yacht, lasted only a few hours, until the legitimate owner knocked on the door of the cottage we were renting. He argued that since the incident did not take place on international waters, but on a man made lake near Krakow in southern Poland, I should not strictly apply international laws of the sea and therefore the boat still belonged to him. As a rational person (at the time I was theoretically a man, but realistically still a boy), I eventually agreed with his position. Consequently, Bosun released the dinghy, which I had towed behind my kayak for a few hours and against the wind the night before. I am not sure whether this very fist sailing vacation messed up my marbles or my screws were loosened from reading too many sailing books soon after. Forsure the permanent damage was done by the wave of successes of Polish singlehandlers. In those years several of them made front page headlines in the sailing world. Krystyna Chojnowska- Liskiewicz, the first woman in the world to circumnavigate would be on the top of that list. It is not important why and when I started dreaming. The important part is that the dream is coming true. I am about to set sail for a solo circumnavigation. Talk to you from my first stopover in Hawaii. Please note that during my trip I will use only alepiarczyk@yahoo.ca as an e-mail address. On April 16 th , Andy Lepiarczyk departed WVYC in his Figaro Class MIGHTY CHICKEN on a circumnavigation voyage around the world with his first leg being WVYC to Hawaii. Next stop Tahiti, then continuing on westward. This is Andy’s second long voyage – three years ago (2005) Andy sailed MIGHTY CHICKEN from France through the Panama and up to Vancouver via Hawaii. Andy has promised to send updates of his voyage for posting in future Foghorns’(Editor’s note: Bon voyage, Andy, from all of us at the Club.)
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