Dreaming Of High Seas -- Boat Nearly Ready For Solo Trip Around Globe; Now Owner Has To Learn To Sail

ANACORTES - The difference between Ray Thayer and most dreamers weighs 43,000 pounds, stands three stories off the ground and answers to the name "Wild Thing."

It is a sleek aluminum sailing sloop, custom-built, one of a kind: Sixty feet of pure ocean power waiting to be unleashed.

As the craft is gingerly hoisted from its shipyard scaffolding birthplace, Thayer helps steady it against an icy wind by gripping a long rope tied to its nose. He appears unwilling - or unable - to let go.

Tough to blame him for that. When your life's savings and a three-decade-old obsession hang from a sling, you'd rather not see it dance like a kite with no tail.

Ray Thayer's jaw is set. He is determined. Sometime in the '60s - he isn't sure when - he abruptly decided he must sail around the world, all by himself. Next year, he plans to do it. Just like that.

Never mind that Thayer, 58, is a grandfather and retired drywall contractor who quite literally has never sailed in his life.

Or that his new craft is so expensive he seems embarrassed to disclose its total price.

Or even that round-the-world solitary voyages are often deadly, as evidenced by veteran sailor Mike Plant's recent disappearance in the Atlantic Ocean.

Thayer has this thing about sticking to goals. And, as one bystander at the launching of Thayer's new boat blurted, "A little madness goes a long way."

All the way around the globe, Thayer hopes. He already has

filed entrance papers for the 1994 British Oxygen Challenge, a seven-month, 27,000 nautical-mile trek for single-handed ocean racers. Between now and then, he will have to learn not only how to sail, but how to pilot a unique, high-tech craft through unforgiving seas for months at a time - alone.

"Actually, I'm pretty much looking forward to it," says Thayer, whose worn coveralls give away a relentless work ethic. "I'm sort of a loner, anyway. I get along with myself really good."

More than a few people have told Thayer he's at least a half bubble off plumb.

"Pretty much everybody," he says with a sly smile. "My wife thinks I'm absolutely nuts."

But he persists. For years, Thayer worked as a Bellingham contractor and through "prudent investments," saved enough cash to commission his sloop, which will cost just under $1 million fully equipped, builder Val Boyce estimates.

Wild Thing is the creation of noted Anacortes marine designer Ted Brewer, who traveled to Newport, R.I., to examine boats finishing the 1991 British Oxygen Challenge.

"It's just a big dinghy," Brewer says of the finished product as it is lowered into the waters of Guemes Channel. "A dinghy blown up to 60 feet."

For the past 18 months, Brewer's drawings have been carefully followed by Boyce, owner of Quiet Cove Enterprises. Until its long-awaited launching this week, the unconventional sloop dominated the Anacortes waterfront skyline.

It is the only aluminum racing craft of its kind. Wild Thing has four headsails and a deep, unconventional keel. Deck space is ample and uncluttered. The 29-foot boom is connected to the deck rather than the mast, making it more stable at high winds.

When it's not racing, it's powered by a "tractor jet," a unique water turbine similar to those found on seine skiffs.

Inside, the craft is equipped with state-of-the-art electronics gear and controls to massive winches. It's designed to be sailed by one man. All control wires, pulleys and lines lead to the bridge.

Outside, its smooth lines and gleaming white, red and black paint are eye catchers. Wild Thing, which turned 13 knots under power in early tests this week, is likely to turn many a head when it arrives within two weeks at Shilshole Marina to have its mast installed: The carbon-fiber pole will stand 100 feet off the water.

It then will be fitted with sails from Lidgard of Anacortes, and Thayer will begin a long, tedious sailing education.

"I don't think I'll have trouble learning," he says, nodding at two dozen local sailing types who've come to gape at his creation, slap him on the back and wish him good luck. "A lot of people seem willing to help."

Thayer plans to bank 40,000 nautical miles before entering the global race. He'll enter several Puget Sound races this summer, then embark on practice voyages to Hawaii, then the South Pacific.

His wife, Marilyn, won't go along - she gets seasick - but will fly to some ports to meet him.

She thinks her husband just might be stubborn enough to pull it off.

"I'm apprehensive, but I have confidence in him. He has that adventuresome spirit I don't understand. I guess he'll just take it out . . . and learn as he goes."

Once that happens, Thayer's resolve is likely to grow even deeper, Boyce predicts.

"When he gets sailing and actually feels the power he's got here, he'll just absorb it - like a thrill sponge," Boyce says.

Thayer shrugs all this talk off. To him, it is just something he knows he must do. "It's been a big dream of mine. Now I need to just get out there and do it."