My Mate Joe

by Andrew Crawford on 30 Jul 2007 On the occasion of the Seawind Cats celebration, and after some discussion with Brent Vaughan from Seawind, it occurred to me that, apart from Seawind staff, no discussion of this company could be complete without one of its favourite customers.

Joe Siudzinski and his infinitely better half Kathy are the proud owners and skippers of a Seawind 1000 'Katie Kat'. Joe is a retired engineering director, a life-long multihull sailor on San Francisco Bay.

Joe’s professional background in engineering is demonstrated clearly in his sailing web site, www.katiekat.net. Not that the site is a techno feast to visit, rather the content is interesting, reflectively philosophical but at all times a critical examination of the boat and its systems. I met Joe through his web site. As a person interested in all things multihull I followed the travels and discussions for a time then commenced an email discussion with Joe. This resulted in Sonja and I meeting Joe and Kathy when they first came to Manly in Brisbane. From that we have developed a friendship and Sonja and I had the pleasure of staying at Joe’s house on the last occasion we were in San Francisco.

Katie Kat’s cruising endeavours thus far include (after purchasing the vessel in Sydney in 2000)
· East coast of Australia (including Tasmania) in 2000-2002
· New Caledonia in 2000
· Australia to New Zealand via Lord Howe Island in late 2002
· New Zealand coastal cruising and touring of in 2003
· Passage to Fiji
· Fiji MiniCruise
· Passage to New Caledonia
· Revisit of New Caledonia
· New Caledonia to Australia in late 2003
· Australian coastal cruising and inland touristing in 2004.

In August 2004, KatieKat was shipped to Vancouver, British Columbia and then -
· KatieKat spent 2005 wandering through British Columbia and SouthEast Alaska, including Glacier Bay
· September 2005 was spent sailing down the northwest US coast home to San Francisco Bay
· Cruising resumed in October, 2006, sailing down the California coast, and into Baja.

Now in the great scheme of things many sailors have done more miles than Joe, but what he has done is demonstrate that it’s the attitude of the skipper that is the biggest safety factor in sailing. The Seawind 1000 is a well designed and built boat and has given 175 owners and innumerable charterers enormous pleasure, but I don’t think even Richard Ward anticipated that an owner could do so much with the boat as Joe has done.

Joe has taken his boat all over the place with clinical efficiency and extraordinary safety, simply be being rigorous about planning, maintenance and systems. The technical components of his web site are a lesson to all sailors not just Seawind 1000 skippers. His critical examination and adaptation of systems is quite extraordinary, and his willingness to share his thoughts and research is admirable.

Joe comes from a performance multihull background and to some it is curious that Joe chose the Seawind as his long term cruising home. But if you read deeply into Joe’s thoughts it is clear that he decided on the Seawind on the basis of its suitability to the task at hand. The biggest advantage Joe sees in the Seawind is its all round visibility and its strength and integrity. He also has much to say on the integration of ideas that makes the Seawind 1000 such a success.

Congratulations on getting out there and doing it Joe. I am proud to call you my mate.