Sailing

Brenda and I are eager to start another day in La Jolla. The balcony drapes open to reveal a brilliant panorama - tall, thin macaw palms, in front of whitecapped waves crashing on cliffs; the pale blue Pacific fading into a distant blue-gray horizon. This breathtaking view evokes visions of leaping and diving whales. These playful leviathans will surely be the highlight of our San Diego vacation. We board JADA - a handsomely athletic, 71-foot, yawl-rigged wooden sailing yacht, vintage 1938 (one year my senior)

For three days last month, advertising executive Barbara Span traded her business suit for a T-shirt and shorts as a member of the first all-woman crew to compete in the 473-mile Annapolis-Newport sailing race. Span, 29, of Haddonfield, took time off from managing the Tidy Cat account for the Philadelphia-based Weightman advertising agency to be jib trimmer on the 50-foot yacht Ichiban, which means "number one" in Japanese. "It was a real challenge, because that job usually goes to a guy who weighs about 200 pounds," said Span, who tips the scales at a mere 120. "The mast is six stories tall, but you have to adjust the sail in one-inch increments.

In the backwash of excitement over a U.S. yachting crew's reclaiming of the America's Cup in February, two videotapes have quickly surfaced, both priced at an affordable $19.95. From U.S.A. Home Video comes The 1987 America's Cup: The Official Film (60 minutes), while LCA, a division of New World Video, is offering The America's Cup (48 minutes), narrated by Christopher Reeve. Given the comparatively low price, any sailing enthusiast who can afford to maintain even a humble Hobie Cat won't flinch at adding both tapes to his or her collection.

From the journal of Donald Garnham, aboard the sailing vessel Moshulu, 19 days west of Cape Horn, March 2, 1936: We had a N.E. gale, and plenty of hard work taking in sail. . . . I wish I could describe the scene. Wind and rain, big seas tossing the ship around, some sweeping the decks, men in oil skins, others half dressed as they had jumped out of bed, running, pulling, shouting and working like demons. . . . The gray-haired Garnham produces the picture to prove it. Out of a plastic shopping bag he pulls a black-and-white photo - white seas burying the lee rail of the 394-foot Moshulu.

Jim Dickson, a blind man, tried to sail the Atlantic alone. He didn't make it. He did, however, make it to Bermuda. Curiously, this has led to a debate. Columnist William F. Buckley disapproves on grounds that there is no point to a blind man trying to sail. It is against nature. "If you cannot see the water and the skies, why are you going on a sailboat to begin with?" Dickson is trying "to do that which (his) handicap inherently proscribes. " Sailing is an experience simply not accessible to the blind, says Buckley.

Being swept about in the shark-inhabited waters of the south Pacific for 66 days in a rubber life raft might make the thought of ever sailing again repugnant for even the hardiest sailor. But not Bill Butler. In 1989, he spent more than two months with his then-wife, Simonne, being tossed in the vast ocean after a pod of whales chomped a hole into the hull of the Butlers' 38-foot wooden sailboat and sunk the vessel midway through the journey that was supposed to take them from Miami to Hawaii by way of the Panama Canal.

Moorestown Friends School is in a beautiful building in a quiet, quaint part of Moorestown, and from there, it hardly produces a blip on the South Jersey sports radar screen. With 570 students from preschool through 12th grade - and only 40 in the senior class - it barely has enough bodies to field teams, let alone compete for championships. One of its few teams is South Jersey's only team in one sport - sailing. And despite being nowhere near the shore, it can compete with the best on the East Coast.

Former Cherry Hill Councilman Leonard Sonnenberg, a vocal politician who came to power eight years ago with the transitional CHANGE slate, died yesterday while boating at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken, authorities said. Sonnenberg, 67, may have suffered a heart attack while sailing, Camden County Prosecutor Edward F. Borden Jr. said. "It's either a heart attack or a drowning. We don't know at this point," Borden said. An autopsy is to be performed today. Sonnenberg was sailing alone about 2:30 p.m. on the river when his boat capsized, Borden said.

From the middle of the Delaware, on a sailboat, the city looked shiny and peaceful. Above the flapping sails, luffing noisily in the stiff breeze, you could not hear the roaring traffic on I-95. Somewhere in the city, you knew, people were sitting shoulder to shoulder on cramped subway cars. It seemed far off. "I love boats," said a teenager named Benjamin. He clasped his fingers behind his neck and pointed his nose toward the summer sun. As his loose T-shirt flapped in the breeze, he talked about his days on power boats - "fast boats, I'm telling you, 'cause I love speed" - in Florida and Maryland and along the Jersey shore.

For Capt. Tony Bullimore and his trimaran crew, Philadelphia is the first port on a journey to assail "the oldest and boldest" of maritime records - the Cape Horn Challenge. The challenge is a record that was set 135 years ago by the Flying Cloud, an American clipper ship. The Flying Cloud made the trip from New York to San Francisco, via the treacherous Cape Horn at South America's southern tip, in 89 days and eight hours, Bullimore said. "Over 250 ships have tried to break the record, but none were ever successful," said Bullimore, Britain's Yachtsman of the Year in 1985.