Sailing Stockton Lake in a Sea Pearl 21

Sunday, I had the privilege to go sailing with a Drury University art professor that several of my friends had taken class with and had spoken highly of. He, Tom Parker, sails a Sea Pearl 21, made by Marine Concepts and I met him through the Yahoo Sea Pearl Forum a few weeks back. The Sea Pearl is a cat ketch rigged sailboat based on the Hereshoff Carpenter dinghy and has been on my radar as one of the coolest looking production sailboats, for a few years, now.

We put in at the Crab Tree Cove Public Use Area on Stockton Lake, then sailed out past the dam and Orleans Trail Marina. As we passed Orleans Trail I thought I spotted Gene Berry's new boat, a modified Michalak Mayfly. I met Gene at the SailOklahoma Messabout and he frequently sails on Stockton.

We rounded the big island in the middle of the main lake channel. Then headed to a cove across the lake from Stockton Lake State Park Marina for lunch. After lunch, we pulled anchor and I got to sail her back towards the launch area. Which was pretty awesome. We either outran or kept up with several sloops with longer waterlines. I eventually handed the tiller and sheets back to the captain, then i pitched a 1972 (the year i was born) fifty cent piece into the deepest part of the lake, just in front of the dam. It was the coin under the mast of my first little homebuilt sailboat, the boat I burned a few weeks ago and I felt it was owed to someone other than me for many safe returns on lakes that were probably too big for me to sail it on.