February 20, 2018 – The Chardonnay II has been a fixture on the Monterey Bay for more than 25 years, but now the popular sailing excursion yacht has a brand new sister—almost an identical twin. The Chardonnay III officially launched on Valentine’s Day with a bay cruise along the Santa Cruz coast for a group of Adobe software executives from all over the world.
The bright red sail boat is easy to spot out at sea and, for now, will be used exclusively for private charters and team building sails, like the one taken by the group from Adobe.
“Our charter business was growing so much that we ended up having to cancel the scheduled public tours,” said Lara Antonioli, director of marketing and outside sails, “The Chardonnay III will allow us to better serve the public without interruptions.”
Jim Beauregard—who owns Chardonnay Sailing Charters along with the Seaside Company—started looking around for a second sailing yacht about three years ago. He was especially interested in getting another Santa Cruz 70, which like the Chardonnay II was hand-crafted in the Soquel Hills by legendary boat builder and longtime Port Commissioner Bill Lee—often called the wizard.
There were only 19 of the vessels made before Lee “broke the mold” so the search didn’t take long. All the Santa Cruz 70s were built to be world-class racing boats, particularly for the Trans Pac race from Los Angeles to Hawaii. They use light-weight carbon fiber construction and a flat bottom that mimics a surfboard and allows the boat to glide over the waves and swells. All except for the Chardonnay II, which was built especially for leisurely excursions around the Monterey Bay.
The one Beauregard located was called the Thirsty Tiger and had originally been purchased by a midwesterner to race up and down Lake Michigan. Due to freezing winter temperatures, it spent much of every year in dry dock and was still in excellent condition.
Since Beauregard bought the racing yacht and moved it back home to Santa Cruz in 2015, vessel manager Adam Koch has been working to retrofit the boat so that it could get Coast Guard approval to carry passengers. “We added 6,000 pounds of ballast to make it more stable and safer and had to remove fittings on the deck so people wouldn’t trip,” he said. A outside railing was also added and new less racy sails, but otherwise the racing boat remains the same and passengers will be able to help sail it.
For a typical 3-hour team building charter, the Chardonnay III can carry about 35 passengers. They will spend the first hour on the dock where Koch will teach simple sailing concepts like the points of sail and the names for various parts of the boat. A catered lunch will follow and then the captain and three crew members take the group out on the bay, enlisting their help in sailing the racehorse. “People can lounge around and listen to music if they want or really help sail it,” he says.
Except in inclement weather, the Chardonnay II will now be going out for public tours three to four times a day for straight sight-seeing tours or beer, wine and pizza cruises and the Chardonnay III will go out with private charters five to seven times a week. “It’s going to be a great season!” Antonioli says.
About the author
Deborah Luhrman is publisher and editor of Edible Monterey Bay. A lifelong journalist, she has reported from around the globe, but now prefers covering our flourishing local food scene and growing her own vegetables in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
