Providing Custom Marine Canvas And Stainless Frame Systems To Boat Owners With His Business, De La Sol Canvas Repair
Ben Sanderson owns a beautiful and seaworthy 1988 Motiva 39 S which is moored in Oceanside Harbor in north San Diego, CA., but instead lives in a 1974 Winnebago in the nearby parking lot.
The Winnebago still has the original carpet and curtains and has not been remodeled.
“It suits me fine and I don’t really like to be on the water anymore,” Sanderson said. “I can drive to San Diego and to San Clemente to do my work. It works out better than my boat for my business.”
Sanderson provides custom marine canvas and stainless frame systems to boat owners around San Diego and Orange County with his business, De La Sol canvas repair.
“I have all the patterns for the boats built in the past 10 years, and the tools to fix or make new sales,” Sanderson said. “I’ve been on the ocean my whole life and even though I live on the land now, I still love the ocean.”
Sanderson tools around in his blue RV fixing or making cushions, seats, leaning posts, Bimini tops, T-tops, toe-rail covers, enclosures, spray hood/dodgers, seats, benches, any related items for all types and size boats. He has a special machine and buckets of glue to repair canvas of all sizes. He moves his RV every two weeks as part of the deal to park for free, so he stays in Wal-Mart parking lots and in a friend’s driveway on occasion.“I can’t afford to stay in most of the RV parks in San Diego because they’re so expensive,” he said. “I’m a low budget guy and I pay for my slip at the harbor. I like moving around too. I don’t have anything against living in a house, I just like the freedom to move around. If you don’t like your neighbors you just move to another spot.”
Sanderson lived in a home growing up in Huntington Beach, CA., and learned to sail on the Balboa Peninsula near Newport Beach. He loved sailing, but he didn’t own a boat.
“I might have borrowed a boat or two for a few hours back in the day,” he said. “But I always put it back cleaner than when I took it.”
After high school the sailor took jobs cruising with crews transporting yachts from Seattle to California. He learned how to fix sails with tape and glue on the fly when the weather tore his mainsail 40 miles from San Francisco.
“You have to learn to fix your own stuff when you sail and live in an RV,” he said. “If you take your rig into a shop you don’t have anywhere to live. You don’t want to count on someone else to save you. That’s my opinion anyway.”
Sanderson met his future wife Roxanne in Hawaii while he was there studying for his captain’s license. She was raised to sail as well, and the two were married and began a journey to Tahiti.
“Roxanne was into sailing more than I was and she pushed me to be a better sailor,” he said. “We had some close calls and were in some very dangerous spots, but together we pulled through.”
What the couple didn’t survive was cancer. Roxanne died in 2014 at the age of 40 from breast cancer, five years after they were married. A month later Sanderson moved off his boat and into his RV.
“I lost the energy to sail when she died,” he said. “I felt it was a good time to start a new chapter in my life. The RV suits me. It’s old and a little creaky, but it gets me where I’m going.”
Good canvas work is hard to come by, said Charlie Farris, the owner of a boat in Newport Beach that Sanderson has worked on in the past year.
“He’s a good guy and he does great work,” he said. “That RV is really something. His boat is beautiful, but if you don’t have the heart for sailing you shouldn’t do it because it can be dangerous.”
Sanderson agrees.
“Driving can be dangerous, but sailing a boat in a storm can kill you if you don’t do it right,” he said. “For now I’ll take my chances in my Winnebago.”
Candice Reed
A graduate of Kelsey-Jenny College in Communications as well as a certified grant writer, Candice has written for The Los Angeles Times & The New York Times. She loves entertaining and all things French.
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