All in the Family

A father and son find and restore the first Cal 25, then win the nationals with her.

Issue 144: May/June 2022

In these days of glitzy grand prix yacht racing, it might be easy to believe that the truly zealous sailors are the professionals crewing cutting-edge multimillion-dollar yachts. But then you meet someone like father and son Art and Scott Melendres who, in just one example of their dedication, were in the throes of restoring their vintage Cal 25 when they just couldn’t wait any longer to get back out there.

“We’re still cutting holes for hardware while heading out to race,” Art says. “Scott’s got a drill in his hand and he’s yelling, ‘Go to the starting line!’ ”

Art, 81, is a retired law enforcement officer; Scott, 49, works in home construction. In 2017, the duo found a languishing 1964 Cal 25, bought it for $600, and began an extensive two-and-a-half-year rebuild. In September 2021, they trailered the newly refurbished boat 2,672 miles from Long Beach, California, to Annapolis, Maryland, and won the Cal 25 Nationals with their longtime, dedicated crew of family and friends.

The Melendreses aren’t your average racers (they’d won the nationals three times before), and One More Time isn’t your average Cal. Art and Scott have hull #1, the first Cal 25 ever built. Their story is a study of how good a refit can be, what a resurrected good old boat can do, and the meaning that a multigenerational family of passionate sailors can make.

One Time

Art was in his 30s when he started sailing; his first boat was a Hobie 14. Later, he upgraded to a Hobie 16, taught Scott to sail, and spent many a weekend flying a hull off the coast of Long Beach.

“Scott really took to it,” Art recalls. “I’d come home from a jog and find my 9-year-old son sitting on the curb with the truck packed, ready to go out on the Hobie.”

Art also recognized Scott’s early aptitude for craftsmanship. “As a kid, he could fix anything. Once, while his mom and I were away, our furnace broke down. So what does this kid do?” Art shakes his head and smiles. “Scott climbed in the attic and fixed the furnace.”

The Melendres family loved the Hobie Cats but were soon ready to move up. A Snipe might have been their next boat had another option not appeared.

“A neighbor of ours shared a Cal 25 with a partner who wanted out,” Art says. “So, I bought in.”

The Cal (short for California) 25 has often been hailed as an “everyman” boat. Designed by Bill Lapworth, the boats were affordable, fast, and fun, and from 1964 to 1976, Cal Yachts produced 1,848 of the racer/cruisers. The boat’s spoon bow and distinctive flush deck made them excellent racers, while four full berths made them practical weekend cruisers.

By the mid-1970s, Art owned Cal 25 hull #50 outright and was racing with the Cal 25 fleet in Long Beach. Pat Graham, a close friend, was his first crew. After high school, Scott and his sister, Monica Oviedo, joined in.

The years turned to decades, and the Melendreses continued to race, cruise, and refurbish that first Cal 25, called One Time. And all those miles in the boat paid off; they won the Cal Nationals three times, in 2003, 2012, and 2015.

Meantime, a new generation came aboard, including Art’s grandsons Scotty and Ryan, nephew Chris Lopez, and friend James Yano.

Art and Scott were more than pleased with their boat. However, through the years they’d often heard rumors that another Cal 25—hull #1—was holed up somewhere on nearby Naples Island in Long Beach. Then, in 2017, the guys saw an ad for a neglected Cal 25 on Craigslist. Scott and Pat Graham visited the boat, tracked down its original 1964 registration, and confirmed its identity.

“Friends were like, wait, don’t you guys already have a Cal 25?” Scott says. “And we said, ‘Yeah, but this is hull number one—the first one off the assembly line!’ ”

Art bought the boat for $600. And, just like that, a new journey began.

One More Time

Two boats were too much. To simplify things, Art and Scott purchased a diesel “dually” pickup and trailered One Time 2,700 miles from Long Beach to Detroit for the 2017 Cal 25 Nationals. After three days of racing on Lake St. Clair, rekindling old friendships and cultivating new ones, and finishing ninth in a field of 28 boats, Art and Scott sold hull #50 for $6,000, returned to California, and began using the cash on hull #1.

The spending was easy. With a blistered bottom, widespread dry rot, termite infestation, and holes virtually everywhere, the boat needed a lot more than a cosmetic redo. The project quickly became a rebuild.

“You should’ve seen this boat. It was a total eyesore,” Art says. Step one was to put a new bottom on the boat. Then they launched her and headed back to their slip at Long Beach Yacht Club, where Scott began tearing off hardware and removing the rotten deck. The guys admit they weren’t surprised when neighbors complained and marina management showed up asking questions.

“We were a detriment to the neighborhood and prime candidates to be piled on,” Art says. “But the marina people were great and cut us some slack. And, in the end, we didn’t disappoint them. It’s not within me to own an ugly boat.”

If Art is the storyteller, Scott is the master craftsman. Careful, methodical, and persistent, Scott breathed life back into hull #1 from stem to stern and bilge to deck. He rebuilt the transom and mast step and then turned to the deck and its constellation of holes, which he filled, faired, and sanded, and then painted the entire deck with Awlgrip. At one point, a window was broken by accident.

“Well, I guess we’re getting all new windows now,” Art says, happily recalling the mishap.

The approach was one part historic restoration, one part modern refit with clever customizations. On deck, every piece of hardware was relocated and replaced. (The mast was rehabilitated and painted; the boom was trashed.) Scott added new standing rigging, installed a track on the mast for easy adjustments of the spinnaker pole, and added a cascading backstay. He even crafted custom lifelines with straps that stretch and allow for hiking when racing.

“Many of our best ideas were borrowed from big boats then adapted and stripped down. We also took a lot of ideas from the Detroit fleet,” Scott says. “In our defense, the Detroit fleet stole ideas from us too.” One of those borrowed ideas is the beveled toerail Scott added to cockpit locker seats to provide a foothold when seated above the coaming.

During the final phase of the refit, the boat was hauled out and received a top-tier racing bottom, a lengthy process that involved fairing, removing blisters, adding primer/sealer, then spraying and polishing each coat. “We long-boarded the heck out of it,” Art says.

Scott gave the interior equal attention. Along with new chainplates and wiring, he restored the teak woodwork, rebuilt cupboard doors, and upgraded the upholstery. Early Cal 25s had galleys and tables, but Scott removed all that, eschewing the unnecessary and opening up the cabin for weekend cruising.

As a result, there’s now a wealth of space inside this 57-year-old design. But the boat’s fresh sensibility isn’t just clean and minimal. When you push back the wide wooden companionway slider Scott handcrafted (using a vacuum press bag to help create a nice camber), you can really feel its solid heft.

Art and Scott took their time before settling on a name. In the end, hull #1 would become One More Time.

“I use the pronoun ‘we’ a lot when I talk about this boat,” Art says. “But the truth is, I wrote all of the checks and Scott did all of the work. Throughout the project, I had total confidence in my son.”

Back to the Nationals

By May 2020, the refit was complete. The team raced locally for a year, and then, by the summer of 2021, they were back on the road with the nationals in their sights once more. Alongside family and crew, Art and Scott towed One More Time from Long Beach, California, to the Cal 25 Nationals in Annapolis, Maryland, outrunning Hurricane Ida en route.

On the water, they outran the competition, besting a field of 14 boats across three days and five races at Annapolis.

“Anyone who’s raced on the Chesapeake knows that you best expect anything and everything,” Art says. “Wind, no wind, chop, current, heat, humidity— we even had to deal with debris coming down from some dam opening up north.”

Art drove and Scott was tactician. Crew included Josh Oviedo, Scott’s son, Scotty, James Yano on foredeck, and Larry Robertson in the pit, trimming the main. Longtime friend and crew Pat Graham was in a horrific car accident only weeks before the race. He couldn’t sail injured, but that didn’t stop him from traveling to Annapolis to support the crew.

“That’s how loyal and good a friend Pat is,” Art says. “He’s an incredible person.”

The first day of racing, One More Time finished third, and over the next days gathered three consecutive second-place finishes. In the final race, things were looking good until a port/starboard situation resulted in a protest flag. Art and Scott had been racing in third but opted to do a penalty turn and spent the rest of the race making up lost time.

“We fought our way back and finished fifth, but we knew the math,” Art says. “We crossed the finish line and won the regatta without winning a single race.”

If it’s rare for an old boat to get resurrected, it’s even more rare for that boat to travel cross-country, win the nationals, and win hearts. “They’re all good racers out east,” Art says. “But, more importantly, they’re hospitable and gracious. I mean, here comes this boat from California, essentially taking the prime plum of a trophy from them, and they were nothing but supportive of us. We were there a week. Everyone was on this boat.”

There are other restored Cal 25s out there, many racing in active fleets around the country—in Detroit, Port Huron, the Chesapeake—but beyond her hull number, One More Time enjoys a particular distinction. “Rumor has it, hull #1 was Bill Lapworth’s personal boat,” Art says.

The history of hull #1 is difficult to confirm, but the logic is sound. In the early ’60s, Lapworth and builder Jack Jensen were among the foremost designers and builders of fiberglass displacement boats. And Cal Yachts was headquartered just a few miles down from Long Beach in Costa Mesa, California.

“I love all the history. And I love the Cal 25. To me, it’s the greatest racer/cruiser ever built,” Art says. “But, the best part of this journey has been sailing for 50 years with my wife, my daughter, my son, and my grandsons. When Scott first brought his oldest boy out, his legs barely reached the opposite coaming. Today, he’s 16; his brother is 12. They still sail with us. The rest of our crew might as well be family. For me, this is it. There’s nothing better.”

David Blake Fischer lives in Pasadena, California. His writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, the MOTH, and Cruising World. Follow his sailing adventures on Instagram @sailingdelilah.

 

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