This website documents the sailing adventures of Jonny Waldman, Jon Haradon, and Matt and Karen Holmes

It started with just the three guys: Matt Jon and Jonny. In the early 2000’s—while all of them were still single—they hatched a plan to buy a boat and sail around the world. Matt moved to San Francisco and, devoid of convenient outdoor rock climbing options, started crewing for sail races in the bay. Jonny moved to San Francisco and got “on board” with the plan.

Back then we were also meeting up with Jon regularly for adventuring (mainly for climbing and canyoneering). Though he lived in Denver, he went all in too. Matt and Jon took an OSCS keelboat sailing course for a few days. Matt spend two weeks helping Pete Dow and Ray Conner sail their boat from Florida to South Carolina and continued racing on the bay as foredeck crew. They joined the Berkeley Yacht Club so the they could borrow the J14 dinghy to trapeze out and regularly capsize (wearing wetsuits) in the heavy bay winds, without consequences.

Matt Jon and Jonny bought a boat in Mexico in December 2007, a 1979 Valiant 40, hull #201. Originally they were going to work on it in Mexico then sail it to San Francisco bay, but it proved too challenging to accomplish anything in Mexico during short work trips. Instead they paid to have it trucked up to the bay in the spring of 2008. It stayed on the hard in the Berkeley marina for a week or two for a non-stop work session on bottom hardware, keelwork and painting before going into the water. They berthed it at a slip in Emeryville marina.

They performed an unbelievable amount of work on it from spring 2007 until departure February of 2010. Jonny moved onto the boat, Matt and Karen moved in the apartments close to the marina, and Jon flew out whenever he could to participate.

On weekends (whenever the boat was not indisposed) they sailed in the San Francisco bay—one of the very best places in the world to practice sailing, with protected waters and daily 15-25 knot winds.

Sometime during the years of boatwork, Matt and Karen got married and Jonny recused himself from the ocean. Jon had to stay in his job longer than planned. Matt and Karen departed San Francisco February 2010, sailing down the coast to San Diego with the help of friends (Pete and Ray).  Then Karen and Matt sailed on alone to Mexico. Jon joined for a week in the spring to cruise the Mexican coast.

Matt and Karen left La Cruz in mid-April to cross the Pacific.  The “puddle jump” took 25 days.  Jon joined the boat in the Tuamotus in June, and the three of them spent the following few months crossing the South Pacific.  They reached Brisbane, Australia in November 2010. 

Matt and Karen departed, returning to the States in early December. Jon was then on the boat on his own at the dock in Brisbane, working on the boat doing some much needed maintenance and a whole slew of new projects. After three months of working on the boat and another three months of cruising the Queensland coast, Jon left the boat at the East Coast Marina in Manly and departed for the States.

Syzygy was sold to a kiwi in the summer of 2011 and headed for New Zealand, hopefully to see more hardcore ocean crossings.