Langdon and Morgan Parrill (left of center) find smoother sailing on the second day of the sailboat regatta, finishing the event in third place.
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY PALM SPRINGS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Morgan Parrill remembers “visible twisters, like tornadoes on the water” during the Salton Sea’s only sailboat regatta, held April 18–19, 1964.
“It was blowing 40 to 50 knots, and a lot of boats were capsizing,” Parrill recalls of the first day. At 10 years old, he had two years of sailing experience alongside his Navy-veteran dad. But the 350-square-mile sea east of the Coachella Valley presented an unprecedented test for 14-foot sailboats designed for tranquil bay sailing. “We were going as fast as I had ever gone. My dad looked up and said, ‘Uh oh.’ When I looked up, the mast bent in half, and our sails landed in the water. We had to get towed in and spent a good portion of the night straightening the mast to race the next day.”
Despite the setback, Morgan and his father, Langdon, finished in third place. Langdon’s good friend Chad Twitchell won but capsized his Lido 14 only a few seconds after the race ended.
According to a 1964 article in The Desert Sun, Boyd Thomas of Desert Shores had been sailing his 32-foot Islander sloop on the sea and “spreading the word that the Salton Sea has everything a mariner looks for except mermaids.” William Schock — whose eponymous Newport Beach company introduced the Lido in 1958 and was its exclusive manufacturer — officiated the regatta. Desert Shores Yacht Club awarded trophies.
“Lido 14 in those days was a very strong fleet,” Parrill says. “We raced at Alamitos Bay, Newport Harbor, Mission Bay, and Lake Arrowhead. There was a tightknit group of 20 to 30 competitive sailors that traveled around together.” He recalls between 20 to 24 boats in the regatta at the Salton Sea, which he attests caught even the “adventuresome” bay sailors by surprise. “It was a massive amount of water and quite an environment to race [14-foot boats].”
Back row, from left: William Schock, Langdon Parrill, Chad Twitchell, Harris Hartman, and Rowland Lohman (president of the Lido 14 Class Association). Front row, from left: Morgan Parrill, Gary Cline, and another young boating enthusiast.
A boat battles windy conditions on the Salton Sea.
San Bernardino Sun reported regatta results on April 30: “Words like ‘challenging,’ ‘sporting,’ and ‘just great’ summed up the first annual invitational sailing regatta on Salton Sea. Of course, these words came from the rag-bag sailors who trailered their craft from every major port and marina in the Southland to participate in this desert type sailing,” columnist Almon Lockabey wrote. “Even our old friend and fellow Balboa Yacht Club member Chad Twitchell liked the action despite the fact that he and crewman, 13-year-old Gary Cline of Desert Shores, capsized ‘Little Twitch’ a few seconds after finishing the race. Chad found those desert winds can be as tricky as a santana [sic] in Newport Bay.”
Lockabey concluded, “They’re really taking this sailing thing serious on Salton Sea as evidenced by the graduation of the first sailing class sponsored by the Desert Shores YC.”
Alas, what was billed as a “first annual” event ended after its introduction — one of the reasons it is particularly special.
Thomas Schock, son of the Lido 14 boat builder, vaguely remembers the regatta. “I don’t think they ever held a second regatta, primarily because the Salton Sea was very shallow,” he says, “and it was extremely windy that weekend.”
As for the Parrills, they capitalized on their Salton Sea–honed skills to come in fifth a few months later in their boat, “Seventh Heaven,” at the Lido 14 national ocean regatta launched from King Harbor at Redondo Beach.
But the story Morgan has gone on to tell numerous times over the years has been about the time the mast bent in half at the Salton Sea.