William D. Myers ( Bill )
72 years old (in 2008), about 6 ft. tall, 165 lb.
Married to Valerie Ossipoff.
I am a non-resident Member of the Richmond Yacht Club in San Francisco Bay, Senior Member of the Kaneohe Yacht Club in Hawaii and regular member of the Pacific Cup Yacht Club and the Trans Pacific Yacht Club. At one time I was Fleet Captain of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Columbia Challenger Association. In 1991 and 1992 I was YRA-ODCA season champion as skipper of my own 24 ft. fiberglass sloop "Shay". Later on I owned a Catalina 30, "Myst", for a few years and sold it in the spring of '97.
Served twice as Watch Captain and Navigator on the Pacific Cup race to Hawaii: once (in 1992) on the communications boat "Arianna", a cutter rigged Slocum 43, and (in 1996) on "Sonata" , a Morgan 38. On the '96 trip I won the Henri Lloyd West Marine Pacific Cup Navigators Award for "Excellence in the art and science of navigation and seamanship." During the first part of July '97 I served as Navigator on George Killam's Morgan 38 "Ka-Ula-Lani" in the Transpac'97, Crusing Class. We had a great time. Long Beach to Diamond head in Hawaii in 14 days and 11 hours. We had many 160 mile days.
Now I have a Standfast 40 named "Cirrus" and I've been doing some serious ocean sailing. One of the first steps was the "Pacific Cup" race in 1998. We did pretty well with a 3rd out of 12 in our division and 20th out of 70 overall. For me the high point of the trip was a 207 mile day we put in about two thirds of the way there. (Or maybe it was blowing out three spinnakers in the last 20 hours of the race.) After PC1998 I left the boat in Hawaii for a year and it was my intention to sail to Alaska for the summer 1999. We ran into a storm (filling the whole North Pacific with one big low pressure area) and ended up sailing along its southern edge back to San Francisco. Since then we've done the Pacific Cup three more times in 2000, 2004, 2006 and last summer we had a great time competing in the 2007 TransPac. The last time this page was revised (February 2008) we were starting to prepare for the 2008 Pacific Cup race.
I have taught celestial navigation. at various yacht clubs and at the Club Nautique sailing school in Alameda. I have prepared a one hour long general interest introduction to celestial navigation titled "What's an Analemma?" and I have presented it at various yacht clubs and sailing schools. I am available to individuals and groups as a private instructor for sailing and celestial navigation.
I completed a week long UCSD course on Marine Medicine in San Diego, a Coast Guard Auxiliary course on Advanced Coastal Navigation, and two weekend courses at North Sails, one on cruising and one on racing. I have also completed the five day Advanced Racing course at J-World in San Diego.
Chartered four times with friends in the Caribbean, once in Turkey, once in southern Denmark and for a few days out of Olbia, Sardinia. In '96 I had the pleasure of making a Panama Canal transit and then sailing up the Pacific coast of Central America on "Kialoa II".
I had a 100 ton Masters License (expired) from the Coast Guard, #713938. I was certified by US Sailing as a "Basic Keelboat Instructor" in 1997, and as a "Coastal Navigation Instructor" in 1998. I attended a "Crusing World - US Sailing Safety-at-Sea Seminar in April, 2000 and in September, 2000 I received a "Carte de Plaisance" from the Republic Francaise. I also had my (expired) Novice Ham License, KD6WNK, and I'm thinking about working on the General Class.
I was an Officer of the Deck on an aircraft carrier for a couple of years, most of it spent cruising around the Pacific.