Introduction

Cal 20s are kick-ass little sailboats. I had the honor of getting to own this one named Eclipse for a few years and really enjoyed sailing it around the Puget Sound. These little boats have great light wind performance and do well when it gets snotty out as well. The accommodations are sparse and spartan. There are long enough quarter berths for fairly tall people. There isn’t much headroom inside. These are still pretty cheap when they come up for sale and are extremely capable sailboats.

John Vigor wrote a fair bit about Cal 20s. He also suggested them as a small boat to take you anywhere in his book: Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere. In his book: Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat: A Guide to Essential Features, Handling, and Gear: A Guide to Essential Features, Gear, and Handling there was a chapter that he mentioned owning a Cal 20 that was named Eclipse. I double-checked some of the receipts I had of the boat, including one for the motor, signed by John Vigor. So I had the pleasure of owning one of his boats for a while, thank you, John. Also, those books are great reads with a lot of valuable knowledge in them and are worth getting.

1964 Jensen Cal 20

SailboatData has all the specs for the Cal 20: Cal 20 They are fairly light boats at 2,000 lbs. There isn’t a lot of accommodation inside, there is maybe 4ft of headroom inside the boat. There are 2 quarter berths that are over 6ft long, and a reasonably sized V-berth. Some models had a little sink installed shortening the length of one of the quarter berths. Some of the later year versions don’t have the bulkhead at the v-berth making them a little more open in the interior. There is also pretty accessible space right under the cockpit inside and could be used for storage. One of the best aspects of this little boat is the open interior that allows easy access to everything. It is also one of the worst aspects of this boat as well, since things like the cockpit locker is just open to the whole interior. There is a pretty thorough review available for the Cal 20 at Small Craft Advisor

Proven Track Record

When I was looking up information about these back in the day there were several recorded trips to Hawaii and beyond in these little boats. So they certainly have gone the distance. John mentioned a few in his blog and what he wrote about the Cal 20 in his book. There are a few additional accounts that I found since that stuff was written. The biggest and best documented one was Robert Crawford with Black Feathers: A Pocket Racer Sails The Singlehanded TransPac. Black Feathers is a great read and Robert also dedicated an entire section to the modifications that he made to the boat for the journey. I think they were all great except maybe the dome, but it worked great for him.

Moving Eclipse

I bought the boat from a gentleman that had the boat in a marina in Poulsbo. The marina required me to vacate the marina shortly after purchasing Eclipse. At the time the only marina I could find that had availability was up in Port Ludlow. So on a day that the weather looked to be pretty nice I set off with a friend from Poulsbo, and we started making the trek up to Port Ludlow. When leaving though I was a bit back and forth on filling up on gas as we had a little over 3 gallons of gas onboard, but the fuel dock was full with a fairly long wait. So we went ahead and headed out. We really couldn’t have asked for a better day to be out on the water, it started off with a pretty strong northerly. We were able to sail for the majority of the day. Around sunset though the wind completely died off, not even a hint of a breeze. So we started motoring the remaining 15 or so miles that we still had to go.

Since I neglected to fill the 6 gallon fuel tank, it became rather concerning. To be fair it really got super concerning the further along we went but I found that the little Tohatsu 6hp wasn’t using a ton of gas on half throttle. We did arrive without too much issue while keeping a close eye on the gas. It was after dark though and coming into a new anchorage after dark was a learning experience for sure. It is really hard to see anchor lights on a lot of sailboats. We basically had to come in at a very slow speed through the anchorage to not risk hitting anyone. Which was managed fine in the end, and we docked and it was great. Thanks again Greg for going with me that day, it really was a great trip.

No adventures

Unfortunately due to timing and job responsibilities at the time. I wasn’t really able to go on any extended trips with Eclipse. I was fortunate enough to get her out on several day sails with my kids and that was a lot of fun.
As things go with teenagers they were not that interested in sitting out on a boat like that all that often. Which was fine, I think ultimately it was just too boring in the end. Which is hard to compete with and slow down to enjoy that kind of time not doing anything specific. It is hard to convey the usefulness of that sort of time to teenage boys who were more interested in other things. Still had good times out on the water with the kids. I really did have a good time with this boat. I was really ready to spend some time up in the San Juan Islands with her, and it is unfortunate that it didn’t work out.

Haulout and Relocation

For a variety of reasons I decided to relocate from Seattle area to Vernal Utah, when I first left I left Eclipse in the marina with a friend looking over her. After being out in Vernal for a while I came back to get Eclipse and was also picking up a purebred Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. It was a bit of an unpleasant day in late April that I needed to take Eclipse from Port Ludlow up to Port Townsend to be hauled out. I did this trip by myself and the weather was not that great for sailing so I motored the whole way.

Of course nothing is ever simple even with these kinds of situations and there tends to always be something with boats. In this particular case though it went pretty well just uncomfortable weather other than I mistimed going through Portage Canal near Port Townsend. I got into the canal against the tide at the peak of the flow, fortunately I was able to still make forward progress but it was so stinking slow. It was so slow there was a gentleman on the beach leisurely walking in the same direction and very quickly outpaced me. After getting through there it was pretty uneventful all the way to the dock where the boat was left overnight to be hauled out the next day.

Even though I had a trailer for Eclipse, and it is a fairly small boat I opted to have it hauled out with a travel lift for a few different reasons. I felt that with her draft it would make most ramps pretty sketchy to try and mess with. I didn’t really want to have the trailer submerged in salt water at that point even if it was rated for it given the trip I was going to be taking. They also pressure washed the boat. The haulout went without too much trouble. Unstepping the mast was a bit tricky, figuring out a few tricks to lowering it made it pretty straightforward after that. Got the boat settled for the trip, and left that afternoon.

The road trip even was an adventure on its own. So here I am towing this sailboat practically across the country, I stop in at the breeders near Spokane and picked up a puppy. Now I am making 900 miles of the trip back with a sailboat in tow and a puppy along with me. I don’t remember exactly where I stopped for one of the nights but I got off the highway on a road that had no services. It was dark out and I didn’t realize that it turned to a dirt road almost immediately after the exit. The road had a pretty wild ditch and got super narrow pretty quick as well. So I had to carefully back up with the boat quite a ways to try and get turned around. I was thinking at the time that yup it would be just my luck that I would get stuck in a ditch with a sailboat and a puppy. I managed to get us all straightened out and crashed for the night in the truck with Caleb (the Pup). The rest of the trip went pretty uneventful after that, other than various conversations with people at stops along the way.

End

Unfortunately I didn’t get the opportunity to get Eclipse back in the water in Utah. There was maybe one lake that would have worked to have it in the water, but I never managed to get it up there. Other lakes may have been fine depth wise but the ramps just seemed a very difficult proposition with that particular setup. So it ended up sitting in my backyard in Vernal until I was forced to sell it as part of a bankruptcy. I hope whoever got that sweet little Cal 20 is enjoying it and sailing it all over. Things did work out in the end for me I am currently living on a Pearson 36-2.