Crewing

A little about us:

When considering racing on Bushwhacker, think "Express 27" with a bit more waterline, a bit bigger mast, and a bit more comfort belowdecks. We've had Bushwhacker for a few months, and are just now starting to race her and get her into shape.

Bushwhcker is a co-owner, co-skipper operation. One of us has been crewing successfully for 4+ years, including two season championships in an ODCA fleet. The other has been racing for 5+ years, including an HDA season championship, a couple of big-boat-series and a PacCup. However, even with that competitive side, we are most interested in going out, learning, and having a good time.

Our operating philosophy is that we all work as a team, respect each other, and have fun -- winning is not as important as being out on the Bay and being out on the Bay is not as important as taking care of a crewmember/boat-bit that's injured/unhappy/broken/ready for a rest. Sure, we're aggressive and competive, but if we can't smile while we're doing it, something needs to change.

Forewarning: Currently, our boat is very well rigged, and very well maintained, but sorely needs sails -- this is an active decision that represents our philosophy: We need to learn to sail our boat, and develop a cohesive, happy-to-sail-together crew list before we buy all-new-sails and the misplaced expectations-to-win that come with them.

Our Philosophy: We're most interested in finding a coed crew that works well together. We would like to develop a group of people who respect each other's capabilities and can lend a hand when needed... but not take lines out of the hands of a fellow crew member who is doing the job just fine. Conversely, every crew member should speak up if something is beyond their physical capabilities or experience without feeling like they've let the team down... and without being subsequently patronized. Certainly, we wold like to benefit from everyone's prior experience, but often during a race we need to limit conversation to items of importance (like: "You DO see that boat 3 feet away, right?!" and let the skipper and tactician make the decisions.

We're also much more interested in enthusiasm and sincere effort, not current ability -- knowledge and skills can be learned, but a bad attitude spoils a whole crew. Happy beginners are much more desired than attitude-filled "experts".

Our race schedule includes several HDAs, but not the complete schedule, and many (many) Friday Night races and saturday practice/fun sails.

Race days require _only_ that you arrive on time, with yourself, foul weather gear and a good attitude.

We do enjoy the occasional beer or wine (no glass on deck during the race, tho) but not to excess-frat-party-ridiculousness; we do swear a bit but never - never - ad hominem; we only tolerate smoking only from tacticians who stand downwind anyway or crew who can wait until after the race, so they can stand downwind too. Finally, No (NO!) drugs on-board - we don't care what you do after the race, or at the club, or at home, or whatever, but No - NO! - drugs on-board, ever. Not tryin' to be a hardass, but we like our boat too much to give it to the Coast Guard.

We race out of Alameda -- so sometimes we have to set an early dock time to be able to get to the race course, but other times, when we practice, we get to sail in the nicest, warmest, smoothest part of the Bay.

If you're interested, email us. Please let us know what you're looking for in a race boat and what kind of experience you bring (if any), so we can be honest in evaluating each other.