California Dreamin'

Lunchtime rolled around pretty quickly. Since it’s always easy to find hungry sailors, I latched on to Rob Tryon and his better half, the Lat 38-acclaimed LaDonna, for a delectable, sustainably caught feast at the popular Fish restaurant.

Left: LaDonna Bubak and Rob Tryon

This duo doesn’t just live aboard Silent Sun, a William Crealock-designed Pacific Seacraft 37. Rob and LaDonna are each accomplished sailors and singlehanders in their own right. For years LaDonna soloed Salacia, a Catalina 27, on the Columbia River out of Portland, Oregon; Rob’s a veteran of the 2008 Singlehanded TransPacific Yacht Race, and he served as race co-chair in 2010.

Rob did the race aboard a Robert H. Perry-designed Valiant 32. “The boat was a little slow, but it was a lot of fun,” he says. “LaDonna got people to write me notes and told me I could open the box at the halfway point. I was a little down. Then I opened the box and there were notes from John and Amanda Neal, Lin and Larry Pardey, sailing writer Herb McCormick, and Lat 38 publisher Richard Spindler, who included $40 and told me to buy a burger when the race was over. There it was—personal notes from my heroes.”

That certainly supplied the needed push to help him complete the race, which he did in 19 days.

Did he buy the burger?

“I did buy the burger, at Bubba’s, from a girl in a bikini who had no tan lines,” Rob clearly recalls.

While he mulls over doing another Singlehanded TransPac someday, LaDonna lends perspective. “It’s an addictive race,” she says. “Everybody says they won’t do it again, and then they do.”