Schooner’s Trade Winds Becalmed : Spike Africa’s Skipper Is Hoping for Brisk Summer

In 1986, with the death of her husband who built the 33-ton Spike Africa, Monika Sloan faced a hard choice.

“Do I keep the boat? Or do I sell Spike?”

It had taken Bob Sloan about six years to construct the 70-foot, two-masted schooner in the couple’s back yard in Costa Mesa. Regarded as one of Newport’s best sailors, Sloan died of leukemia at age 50 after a career of charter boating.

“After his death, I decided to give myself two years to see how I would do in this business,” Monika Sloan said. “I was determined to give it a shot.”

Although Sloan, now 38, is a former model and a nurse, she has earned her sea legs, having sailed since age 12.

For starters, Sloan got her skipper’s license. She turned to what marketing skills she had to get clients for the boat, which has a crew of three. Now, eight years later, with another summer coming on, success is slowly arriving.

The vessel has become a celebrity because of its historic, wooden design in an age of fiberglass.

Spike Africa has been pictured in Vogue, Time, Wooden Boat and Land’s End catalogue. The Hollywood credits on its resume include the TV series “Riptide” and the movie, “Joe vs. the Volcano,” in which Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan sailed off into the sunset.

But it hasn’t been easy. To help pay maintenance and monthly slip fees that can consume thousands of dollars, Sloan has gone back to nursing at a Newport Beach pain clinic. “I thought I could do it by being a full-time skipper,” she lamented. “I can’t.”

She hopes for a summer of smooth sailing, which means plenty of sunset cruises, weddings, burials at sea, birthday parties and overnighters to Catalina Island or the Channel Islands for corporate customers. A four-hour private cruise with Spike Africa Sailing Charters costs $850.

It isn’t a trip to Tahiti or winning a schooner’s cup, “but it helps pay the bills,” she said.

For non-boaters, the beautiful schooner named after a legendary sailor sits out of view of any major freeway while docked in Newport harbor at the Balboa Bay Club. But there are few boats on the West Coast with as much celebrity as Spike Africa.

Race Spike Africa in San Diego and fans line the dock to see and cheer her. Tall wooden ships of historic design have long fascinated the public.

Although not as famous as San Diego’s Star of India, or the 107-year-old sailing ship Balclutha in San Francisco, Spike is the head turner when cruising around Newport Harbor.

Few of the older-styled boats still charter. And, sailers at Newport Harbor believe it’s the only one skippered by a woman.

“When Spike comes into town, people gather on the docks especially when there’s an American schooner cup race,” said Joseph Ditler, 43, with the Maritime Museum in San Diego. “Spike has its own fan club. People have a favorite schooner, and, well, Spike is that way with people.”

The 30-passenger ship was named after Bob Sloan’s friend, Spike Africa, a famous schooner sailor, and self-proclaimed “President of the Pacific Ocean.”

“Spike Africa was an Englishman,” said sailor and rigger Joseph Soanes, 74, of Huntington Beach. “Spike was first mate on the Wanderer, actor Sterling Hayden’s famous boat. Hayden later wrote a book, and to those who sail, it’s quite a good book about his travels.”

For Soanes, who rigged Spike Africa before the boat was launched in 1977, sailing with Bob Sloan was a glorious adventure.

“I think Sloan sailed through the (Panama) Canal more than 50 times,” Soanes said. “He was a colorful man and he and the boat went hand-in-glove. To see him walk out to the main boom and reef (shorten the amount of sail in high wind) was something. He would go back and secure the sail and tie it down--all while underway going along at hull speed. The wind’s blowing, the deck’s moving up, then down. It’s quite an experience.”

Those lucky enough to sail aboard the vessel these days say there’s a “real feeling of heritage,” said crew member Colin Emsley, 29.

“I remember we were at Dana Point with Spike and the fishermen were saying: ‘Hey you don’t want to go out there. It’s too windy. You don’t want to go out there,’ ” Emsley recalled.

“And here’s Spike and Monika as skipper, and it’s really fun out there taking all this wind,” Emsley said. “It’s one of the few boats we don’t call a ‘she.’ It’s just got that work boat image. You think of her as more brawn than beauty.”

Of Monika Sloan, Emsley said she is an excellent skipper. “She’s not too disciplined and not too relaxed, just very professional.”

Born in Berkeley, Sloan studied nursing at UC Santa Barbara, and met her husband through the boating world before they married in 1981.

“Our first home was aboard the schooner while we traveled up and down the coast from San Francisco to Acapulco,” she said.

She learned to sail in a 10-foot “melody” class boat her father bought her. Then she took sailing courses at UCSB and later joined the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and became interested in racing and crewed in local regattas.

The schooner has had an active racing career, sailing in schooner, master mariner and ancient mariner races.

“I don’t like the word ‘yacht’ to describe Spike Africa. It’s too clubby,” Sloan said. “Spike Africa is not a yacht. It’s a working boat.”

Sloan said she and her husband operated a yacht delivery business, sailing luxury yachts from the East to the West Coast crossing the Panama Canal.

“I always accompanied my husband on these deliveries, standing my watch, preparing meals and pulling my weight,” Sloan said.

For her, it’s became a way of life.

“I think just the enjoyment of getting away from land excites people,” Sloan said. “A place where you can shut off the engine and get away from the hum and bustle of life here in Southern California. The sea is a different place that allows you to focus on simple pleasures.”

“There just isn’t anything else that I would rather be doing,” she said.