FROM THE NEWSROOM:Another adventure

EDITOR’S NOTE: Publisher Tom Johnson’s “Fair Game” column will return next Friday.

I got a call last Friday from local attorney Michael Lawler.

“Tony, I wanted to tell you about my latest venture,” he said. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid to sail around the world. So I’m doing that. Taking off for a three-year trip.”

“Wow, Mike, that’s awesome,” I said. “When are you going?”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

OK, so much for advance planning. No chance of us covering his departure on that short of notice. But I promised I’d let the readers know about it in my column this week.

Last I talked to Lawler was in March of 2002. He was telling me about how he and his son were able to view a number of events at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City on very late notice.

The Olympics were just his latest conquest. Lawler has long been well known for managing to get into big events, even though he wasn’t exactly on the invite list. His resume includes the Super Bowl, the NBA finals and the Academy Awards ceremonies a few times.

He’s climbed the Matterhorn and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and traveled to 35 countries around the world.

“Life is short and uncertain,” Lawler told me back then. “You can’t just be sitting on the couch and watch everybody else cheering.”

So it was hardly surprising to get his phone call about his round-the-world trip plans.

What about his life here in Newport-Mesa? You do have a family and a thriving law practice, right, I asked him?

“My three kids have graduated from Newport Harbor High School,” he said. “I am selling my home in Newport Beach, and I have made an arrangement with my associate, Robert Houssels, to take over my law practice.

“But the real key to doing a trip like this is to find the right person to do it with. Fortunately, I met Barbara Burdick of Manhattan Beach two years ago at the Hawaii Yacht Club following the 2005 Transpacific Yacht Race,” he said.

“Barbara is not only gorgeous, she’s an awesome sailor, having raced in a Transpac (in ’01 on an Olson 40), and she lived aboard a Peterson 44 in the Caribbean for five years. She also has earned her 100-ton captain’s license and has delivered boats all over the world. I simply could not do it without her. And with her, the trip will be an absolute joy.”

Lawler, who is also a member of the Newport Harbor Chamber of Commerce’s Commodore Club, went looking for the right boat to do this trip and found a 1985 Northwind 47 that he dubbed Traveler. That’s a fitting name for a guy who went to USC. Lawler was on the sailing team there in college.

Lawler’s extensive seaman experience is thus: A dozen Newport to Ensenada races and two Transpacs (a race between the mainland and the Hawaiian Islands).

“To better prepare myself for the big trip, I took both the Celestial Navigation and the USCG captain’s license courses at OCC Sailing and Seamanship School, and just yesterday I was sworn in to be a captain,” he said.

Lawler’s plans were to complete the Transpac race, which started this Monday and then leave his Transpac crew and go off on the three-year world cruise with Burdick from there.

“We will cruise the Hawaiian Islands for a couple of weeks before dropping down to Tahiti and the other society islands for five weeks, then we’ll sail west across the South Pacific, to Rarotonga, Niue, Tonga and Fiji,” he said. “We’ll then drop down to New Zealand before cruising over to Australia. And all that in just the first six months.

“Altogether, we plan on visiting over 65 counties on six continents during our 39 months at sea. We’re livin’ the dream, and it feels great.”

He did confide in me, however, that he was just a bit worried about pirates and ocean storms.

Still, Lawler and I struck up an agreement, and he is going to send story and photo dispatches from his voyage, hopefully once a month, that we can run in the Daily Pilot.

So stay tuned for that.

Meantime, those interested can keep track of the Transpac race by visiting https://www.transpacificyc.org/. Or, follow Lawler’s cruise around the world at his website, www.voyageoftraveler.com/.

Good luck Michael and Barbara, and as our Pilot boating writer Mike Whitehead always says:

“Safe voyages.”