The most important words on Dave Mosher's boat during this weekend's High Sierra Regatta won't be exchanged between captain and crew.
Mosher has no need for idle chatter while racing sailboats. Besides, he has another conversation going on. The one between him and the boat."I know it sounds goofy, but the boat talks to me," Mosher said. "I can feel what it wants."Mosher, 60, doesn't claim to be a Zen master. But the guy must have some kind of mojo working. During the past three decades, he's accumulated a record of victories few Central California sailors can match."A boat will go damn fast if you don't slow it down by doing something stupid," he said. "That's how I sail. I let the boat do the talking, and I don't fight it."The conversation isn't nearly as one-sided when it takes place in the garage or sideyard of Mosher's house in Madera. That's where captain and vessel really get down to business.It's no secret why Mosher, a retired fire engineer medic who now teaches special education at Valley Community School in Atwater, has won so many sailboat races -- more than he cares to count -- in many types of boats. He's always working on them.Mosher buys a used sailboat that has been neglected by its owner, then spends months restoring it. He polishes the hull, replaces the hardware, tunes the sails -- doing all he can to make the vessel as efficient as possible. He enters the boat in a few races, winning more often than not, and then immediately turns around and sells it.It's a pattern Mosher has repeated 18 times over the years. Some of the boats, he's owned more than once."Every once in a while, I'll make a little money on a boat transaction," said Mosher, who was a sailboat dealer during the sport's 1980s heyday. "But, mostly, it's a labor of love. I love tinkering with things."A quick look around his garage confirms that.There's a 1942 Ford GPW Jeep that Mosher is restoring for his father. There's an outboard motor he is overhauling for a friend. And there's the new hull that will keep his current race boat, a Hot Foot 20 named "Joy Ride," on course in this weekend's High Sierra Regatta.Along with crew Keith Dettman of Fresno and Dan Bandy of Clovis, Mosher is among the favorites in the PHRF class, which stands for Performance Handicapped Racing Fleet. Similar to a golf handicap, each boat is assigned a rating based on the past performances of all boats in its class. This widely used system allows different models of sailboats to race together fairly.Mosher admits the new hull, which he has spent 30 hours working on, might only make a boat-length's difference in an hour-long race. But those 5 seconds could be what separates winning and losing."There are no excuses on this boat," Mosher said. "There is nothing we could have done better. If we lose, we lose. But there are no excuses."Dettman, who has raced with and against Mosher through the years, credited his friend's commitment to finding the "highest possible level of efficiency" for his success. "I'd much, much rather race with Dave than against him," Dettman said. "He's fun to beat, though. Can't say we did it very often."Mosher, who grew up on a ranch outside Parlier, was drawn to sailing at an early age. When he was 8 years old, his father bought him a kit for a 8-foot sailboat from Sears. Since the kit contained only a hull, the boy had to improvise. Sheets were used for sails, a curtain rod became the mast and a piece of plywood turned into the rudder.The young Mosher named his boat "Albatross" (after Errol Flynn's ship in the 1940 film "The Sea Hawk"), which he promptly misspelled and painted upside down."That proves I've not always been a perfectionist," he joked.Mosher didn't begin racing sailboats until his late 20s and was hardly an overnight sensation ("I was slower than evolution."). But he continued to hone his skills, both on the water and in the garage, to the point where he stands alongside Lewis Wagoner, Ruth Barcas, Jerry Hansen and Dave Keran as the Fresno area's top sailors."We have an abundance of great sailors in the Fresno Yacht Club, and Dave ranks right up there with the best of them," said Bill Parsons, the club's commodore.Asked what he enjoys most about sailboat racing, Mosher compared the sport's tactics to a three-dimensional chessboard -- except all the pieces are constantly moving."It's not like I'm going bass fishing and doing battle with a creature whose brain is the size of a pea," he added. "These guys are just as intelligent as me."