Bio: Ron Simonson, Captain

Ron Simonson
Captain

Ron on Set

Born and raised in the south bay area of Los Angeles, Ron has spent most of his life near the ocean. A graduate of Torrance West High and California State University at Long Beach, he now resides in nearby Redondo Beach. When not pursuing his passion for sailing and racing, Ron works behind the camera as a member of Hollywood’s special effects community.


Growing up in Torrance, California the ocean was never far away. Starting with surfing—which is taught in high school gym class—Ron developed a love of the beach and water. However, it was in Sea Scouts that he was introduced to sailing and something that would become a personal passion. Spending summers sailing to the scout camp on Catalina Island, Ron grew to love and appreciate the challenge, hard work and patience that is required by ocean sailing. Shortly after high school Ron acquired his own sailboat, one of the fiberglass classics, a Cal 20. Used as mainly as a cruise boat—but sometimes a one class racer—Ron spent many weekends plying the waters between LA Harbor and Catalina.

Temptress

After graduating from college and getting started in Hollywood, Ron upgraded from the Cal 20 to a Catalina 38. Christened ‘Temptress,’ the 38 was a crusing/racing hybrid of a boat which just happened to be hull #1 of the series. Catalina Yachts has always been primarily known as a fiberglass builder whose boats sailed well—but were not quite race material. The Catalina 38 tried to break that mold. The boat itself was not designed by Catalina, but by Sparkman and Stevens. And instead of being a cruise boat—like most of the other Catalina designs, the 38 was a race design. Ron’s boat actually started life as a racer in the Congressional Cup of 1980. It was this crusing/racing hybrid pedigree which lured Ron into buying the boat. Used as a cruiser for the first part of it’s life, the temptation to get into organized racing slowly grew and by the late 1990s it became a reality. Starting with weekday evening club races and then growing into the more professional weekend races, Ron’s passion for racing slowly began to outgrow the ability of his Catalina 38.



In 2003 Ron settled on upgrading his boat and found the perfect candidate—over 5000 miles away from Los Angeles! But to racers, there is no distance too far. Ron set off in the spring to see the boat that would become Sleeper in it’s home port outside of London. The Jeanneau 44 was already employed as a racer by it’s owner, competing in the cold and wet North Sea. It was love at first sea trial—the sailing term for ‘test drive.’ So the deal was made and the plans were made to ship the boat back from dreary London to the sunny waters of Southern California.

Once Sleeper was in California waters Ron’s passion for racing grew exponentially. Day long weekend races grew into multi-day offshore races—Around Catalina, Santa Barbara to King Harbor, Long Beach to Dana Point. Building up to Sleeper’s first complete Newport to Ensenada race in 2007.

Ron at the Helm of Sleeper

The Transpac has always been a lifelong dream of Ron’s. And now with the boat, the experienced crew and some sponsors to back him up 2013 will see that dream become reality...

Provisioning for the Transpac

Provisioning

Provisioning a sailboat with a full crew for just a weekend is quite a task. But when the race takes the team away from port for three weeks, the task gets exponentially more difficult.

Unless I have a particular dish in mind I shop like I believe most people do—a kind of haphazard without a clear list in hand. I may think of things I need to get during the day, but I rarely write them down. Shopping therefore becomes an aisle to aisle adventure–where I hope the sight of a product triggers my brain into remembering that I wanted to purchase that item. But let’s face it, that strategy rarely works well. However, since most of us are never that far from a grocery store, having to make a random shopping trip to pick up something you forgot is not such a big deal. But when there are  no stores within 500 miles and your name isn’t Larry Ellison—with a fully stocked megayacht shadowing your race boat—creating meal plans, menus and the associated shopping list is one critical task.

It All Starts with a Plan

The starting point is the meal plan—breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Usually the point person for provisioning submits a menu to the crew and asks for input and any suggestions for the meals. In the case of Team Sleeper, Sheri Hunt has taken on the role for meal planning and provisioning of the boat. The menu itself is a balancing act, one of making good tasting meals that do not require too much preparation or too many ingredients while still providing needed energy to the crew. Also thrown into the equation is the possibility of rough weather where a meal needs to be served with almost no preparation. The menu is created after taking into consideration all of these factors, and then the Costo shopping trip to end all Costco shopping trips can begin.

Water

As recently as 15 years ago nearly all potable water for long duration race and cruising trips needed to be acquired in port and stored on the boat. And with 7 people on board—requiring anywhere from 6-10 liters of water a day just for drinking—the size of the tanks and the weight of the water could seriously slow a boat down. At 2 pounds a liter that would be over 3000 pounds of extra weight! Thankfully the last decade or so has seen remarkable progress in the design of on-board watermakers. Using seawater under heavy pressure these devices can take in seawater and generate potable water. Early designs were costly, used quite a bit of power and were far from reliable. But today’s offering are cheaper and more thrifty on power—but still a bit on the unreliable side (you can ask the crew about that!). Even with the watermaker on board Sleeper will start off with full water tanks, but that amount will be about ½ of what would have been required not long ago.

From the archives...

Here are some random pictures from Sleeper's delivery cruise from Channel Islands Harbor to Marina del Rey...

Ron heading back to the cockpit

 I'd say the companionway rigging is a wee bit more complicated these days...

We even had a nighttime visit from some dolphins...

Welcome to the Team Sleeper sailing blog!

Welcome to the official blog of Team Sleeper!

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