Sailor Spends $30,000 Making Boat Ready for Ocean Passage, Takes It to Same Lake He Always Goes To

Recreational sailor Gordon Reef has completed a $30,000 offshore refit of his 34-foot sailboat, equipping it with an ocean-capable life raft, satellite communications, an emergency position-indicating beacon, and a full suite of heavy weather gear, all of which he plans to use exclusively on Lake Pleasant, a 40-square-mile reservoir in central Arizona with a maximum depth of 160 feet and no tides. 'You never know,' said Reef, installing a sea anchor rated for North Atlantic storm conditions onto a boat that will never be more than three miles from shore. 'Lake Pleasant gets some weather. I've seen whitecaps.' The refit, which took fourteen months, included replacing the standing rigging, adding a watermaker, installing an autopilot, upgrading the electrical system to support satellite communications, and purchasing a four-person offshore life raft rated for 30 days of open-ocean survival. 'I asked him why he needs a watermaker on a freshwater lake,' said his wife, Carol. 'He said it's about self-sufficiency. He is never more than twenty minutes from a marina that sells bottled water. But he wants to make his own water. From the lake. That the marina is on.' Reef's marine supply vendor, who processed fourteen separate equipment orders over the refit period, described the project as 'the most comprehensively outfitted lake boat I've ever seen.' 'He has gear that blue-water sailors dream about,' the vendor said. 'AIS transponder, radar, jacklines, a Jordan series drogue. He's sailing on a lake that freezes over for two months a year and has a 5-knot speed limit in the no-wake zone.' Reef rejected the suggestion that his preparations are excessive. 'The sea respects preparation,' he said, gazing out at Lake Pleasant from the dock. 'That's a lake,' Carol noted. 'All water is connected,' Reef replied. 'Philosophically.'