OnBoard Magazine - Issue XIV - 2022 Season

SOAKING UP A LIFETIME OF SAILING & CRUISING Sold on Sabre Everyonehas abackstoryonhowtheir passion for the water got started, and how it grew from an experience to a hobby and in some cases their lifelong identity. For Christine Worth (who prefers to go by Tina), it began at the young age of nine, racing sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay. Her love for being on the water blossomed and she even won her class that first summer of sailing. Nick Worth’s first exposure to boating was in 1960 as a Sea Scout in Puget Sound along the Western boundary of Seattle, Washington. These experiences were promptly followed by his service in the United States Navy, in the Pacific Ocean from 1962 to 1966. Once out of the Navy and attending college for engineering and business, Nick met Tina and they were married. Nick admits that their schooling, plus a career in cable television interrupted boating for a while. Tina and Nick, now rooted on the Atlantic coast, began chartering bareboat sailboats in Maine and the Virgin Islands through the eighties and early nineties, and also raced sailboats during that time. In 1995 they started on a journey owning and racing several performance sailboats, competing in Annapolis, Newport and even traveling for One Design 35 racing in Marblehead, Key West and San Francisco through 2002. Bluewater Sales Professional Chris Hall Jr., fondly remembers his first interactions with Nick and Tina in the mid 1990s when they came to Bluewater’s Hampton Yacht Yard with their sailboat, requesting to dry sail it. “Dry sailing meant that Bluewater would launch it every time the Worths wanted to sail it, and haul it out every time they were finished,” Hall explains. “Their plans for dry sailing and using Bluewater Hampton as home port worked perfectly for many years and throughout this time Nick and Tina became family to us.” MAKING THE SWITCH Chartering sailboats in Maine through the eighties and nineties, Nick became attracted to the “Lobster Yachts” as they called them—Downeast style pleasure craft that took their design cues from the famed lobster boats of the Maine coast. “Lots of small builders aroundMainewere building these beautiful powerboats that rode a lot better and had bigger engines and better hulls that would plane,” Nick recalls. Around the year 2000, Nick purchased their first powerboat: a Dyer 29. This was against Tina’s wishes, but Nickhadaplan to smooth things over. “I named the Dyer 29 Christine and gave it to her for her birthday, all in hopes of receiving forgiveness; And it worked!” Nick exclaims. This started the succession of many Maine-built, Downeast style boats named Christine. The Dyer was followed by a Duffy 35 and then a Sabre 42. “We did some research and became aware that Sabre Yachts did a much better job in building boats. Their reputation and quality was unmatched and the twin Yanmar diesels solidified the decision to buy one,” Nick says. Sabre’s long history of building high quality sailboats probably didn’t hurt either. Being members of the Hampton Yacht Club, Nick and Tina have enjoyed a long friendship with Chris Hall Sr. and Chris Hall Jr. In fact, Chris Jr.’s father-in-law, Greg, was the Bluewater broker who assisted Nick with the purchase of the Sabre 42 in 2011. After a few years of great enjoyment aboard their first Sabre, Tina and Nick were convinced they wanted to do extended cruising and live aboard, which led to a move up through two Sabre 48 models, assisted by Chris Hall Jr. They cruised the Chesapeake Bay in the summer months with occasional stints to New England. With the greater space The Sabre 42 with sailing/rowing dinghy 20 BLUEWATER

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