Mutiny On The Kelpie.....

About once every ten years Orange Coast College Sailing Center taps me on the shoulder and ask me to show the 16 mm color film I took aboard my dad's 65' schooner "Kelpie" on our 1959 voyage to Tahiti. My dad (Capt. Bligh) and brothers Joe and Owen and three other guys head off to the south seas on the big schooner and boy, does the adventure begin. Our first landfall and navigation check was to be Guadalupe island, 300 miles from Newport Beach. Just one problem, dad can't find the island. "No problema" dad says, "bring in the big parachute anchor, hoist the sails and I'm shaping a course for Nuka Hiva only 3000 miles away." Later the same afternoon we go to start the engine and find that by laying too on the big sea anchor all night sea water pounded up the exhaust pipe and filled the engine with water and put it out of commission for the next 75 days! Weeks later we near the equator and encountered our first tropical squall. As the black mushroom shaped cloud came down on our port beam, dad said, "sheet the sails in flat, the wind seems to be dying?" Wow, we learned first hand what a "KNOCK-DOWN" was!!! Luckily, GOD intervened and saved us from sinking as water was cascading down the spiral staircase into the main saloon of "Kelpie." I'm showing the movie on March 1st. You can call the store for time and location. The film is so-s0? My girlfriend's dad gave me a 16 mm camera and 2000 feet of color film and thought perhaps we could win and Oscar with the finished product? Second time I used the camera I dropped the wind-up key overboard and had to wind the camera with needle nosed pliers for the rest of the trip. Anyway, if you are in town that night, drop by and see my presentration, won't show it again for ten years. Oh yes, the Minney brothers finally had enough B.S. from their loving father (Capt. Bligh) and carried off a MUTINY???????