About L-36.com
I started L-36.com over 20 years ago as a service to the 71 boats in my class. Papoose is L-36 #5 and was my dad's boat until his death in 1989. I have been sailing longer than I can remember and decided to bring the boat up to San Francisco Bay. Initially I sailed with my young family but as they moved on I did day sailing with friends and ultimately racing. I raced for about 15 years. Initially as a classic wood boat in the Master Mariners Regatta. One of the joys of my life was the first time I won the L-36 class. After my famous dismasting, I soured on the MM and focused on club racing where I dominated for a decade winning most races, sometimes sweeping the series. I would occasionally even finish first uncorrected even though I had the highest handicap. With Covid I retired from racing. I tell people I was tired of winning and afraid of losing which is both a joke and the truth.
L-36.com has grown over the years. It now gets between 100,000 and 200,000 visits a month. The turning point was when the USCG asked me to create the Weather page. It turns out they had been using some "Google Gadgets" I had created. I had some for marine weather and some for tides. When Google stopped supporting the Gadgets, the Coast Guard wanted a replacement. It was an honor to create the page for them and they credited me with "helping to save lives". The page became very popular and is by far the most visited page on this site. The goal was to put the plethora of weather and tide information all on a single page.
My name is Allen Edwards, not to be confused with my late father Allen Edwards or my son Allen Edwards. I grew up in Los Angeles and came to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend Stanford University where I got a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation I worked for Hewlett Packard where I designed electronic test equipment. I was there for 21 years. The most widely known thing I helped invent was at Stanford Telecom where I worked for about ten years. We invented the Cable Modem and I hold one of the early patents. Eventually Intel bought the group I was running as a way to enter the Cable Modem supplier world. By that time I was the Vice President and General Manager of the group and being responsible for a group of people who just got bought by another company is a story itself that will not be told here. I retired from Intel in 2001. Actually, I didn't retire, I quit -- I was too young to retire. From there I did some stock trading, became a bird photographer, started this website, and of course worked on and sailed Papoose.
Now I am old enough to retire. I spend my time working on this site, doing things around the house, and sailing. My crew, a friend from HP days, and I sail every Tuesday most every week. We picked Tuesday because that was race day and we made a point to keep our calendars clear on Tuesdays. I didn't count, but I would say we sailed 40 days last year. We sail unless there is rain, lightning, gale, the forecast says 30 knots, or the boat is broken or in the yard. I love sharing what I have learned over the years. My YouTube channel is @L-36. I have over 100 articles here on L-36.com plus almost 20 on Soft Shackles alone, most of which I invented. If there is something you would like me to write about, please leave a comment HERE.
Here is one of the early pictures of my boat, L-36 #5
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