Former Mountain View council member sets sail for Hawaii Former Mountain View council member sets sail for Hawaii (December 08, 2000)

Ann and Steve Lewis take second place in sailing race

By Justin Scheck

This past summer former Mountain View City Council member Steve Lewis and his wife, Ann, a former school board president, took second place in the Pacific Cup sailing race from San Francisco to Hawaii.

The four-person crew was rounded out by the Lewis' 18-year-old son, Patrick, and a family friend, Ian Rogers. Together, they sailed the 33-1/2 foot Spirit from the Golden Gate Bridge to Kaneohe Bay, off the island of Oahu, in just under 17 days.

The race was broken into different divisions based on boat size. While Spirit was 31st overall, it was one of the smallest boats in the race, and took second place in its division.

"The exciting part is the competition," said Steve Lewis, a geophysics and oceanography professor at the University of California at Fresno. It's day after day of maintaining concentration." The crew raced round the clock, with crew members taking four-hour shifts, night and day.

"During the race you only do three things: you sail, you eat, and you sleep. It's totally consuming," Lewis said.

For the duration of the race the crew inhabited the boat's minimalist living quarters, described by Lewis as a space "15 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 4 feet high." They slept in one room, never for more than four hours at a time.

After their second day at sea, they didn't see another boat until they reached the finish line. The crew members were able to maintain their intensity, enthusiasm, and passion for racing without any bouts of cabin fever or clashing of egos. "We're a very compatible group," Lewis said. He added that the group needed nothing in the way of entertainment or distraction during the race, as it was hard work just to remain focused. "It's a marathon. You have to pace yourself, so you don't run out of gas," he explained.

In order to keep focused, the crew packed hearty meals and ate home-cooked food for the first week, until the freezer ran out of power. "Then it was just canned food," Lewis said.

The boat made it to Hawaii without a hitch; there were no storms or other dangerous situations to avoid along the route from California.

Upon arrival, the Lewises met up with their younger son, 11-year-old Michael, who sailed home with them. The return trip took 20 days, as the boat was sailing into the wind.

But, Lewis said, with the pressure of racing removed, the return trip gave the family time to relax, read, do some fishing, and check out some of the wildlife.

"We had schools of porpoises swim with us on the way back, and we were followed back, almost the entire distance, by an albatross," he said, adding that the albatross is a sign of good luck to sailors.

Right now, the family is going to do maintenance work to repair the wear and tear Spirit incurred during the long race. After that, they'll begin racing again in San Francisco Bay and up and down the California coast.

The family has always spent a lot of time on the water, Lewis said. He has been sailing since age 6, and Patrick and Michael began racing as infants.