I'm Howard Dentz. I 've had Shadowfax, a Kettenburg K-38 for the past twenty-five years, twelve of them in the San Francisco Bay area, and the remainder down here in Oceanside and San Diego Bays. I used to own Hull number seventeen, "Vitesse," but sold her when I moved from the Marina Del Rey to Washington DC to accept an appointment there.

Love this boat! Have sailed all over the Delta, and up and down the Coast from SF to LA and SD! Single-handed the boat down from San Francisco to Oceanside in 1986. Got into a terrible storm off Big Sur at midnight through dawn. Fortunately was able to rig a storm sail on the fore stay. The boat handled like a real champ in Coast Guard reported sixty knot winds, and thirty foot waves, breaking astern like a freight train coming down on me. Fog so thick I couldn't see the bow! We never took a drop of water on the afterdeck, but kept surfing down the steep waves and sticking our bow into the next one with green water up to the house. Unbelievable! but the bilge stayed dry, and reasonably so did I. The backstay came loose and before I realized it I had split out twenty feet of glued seam in the mast below the spreader. I had it rebuilt at the Kettenburg yard! I wrapped it tightly with one hundred feet of quarter inch Dachron line and sailed the remainder of the trip down from San Simeon harbor of refuge on a one-fifty Genoa alone, since I hd to cover the main sail track with the wrapped line. No sweat!

Great boat, much fun for many years. Am just getting ready to haul it out again at Koehler's yard where our Ancient Mariners Sailing Society had our Wooden Boat festival last summer.

Happy sailing,

Howard Dentz

Posted 10/03/00