Modern panga pápi

The San Diego International Boat Show steams into town Thursday and will be at Spanish Landing Park and the Sheraton Hotel & Marina on Harbor Island through Sunday. Among the exhibitions, activities, displays, and demonstrations, there will be seminars given by experts.

For sailors who happen to love Baja, here is one to catch in the seminar tent: Friday, June 19, from 3 to 4 p.m., Malcolm Shroyer, sailor and manager of Marina La Paz in Baja, will give a seminar on sailing the Sea of Cortez.

In 1963, Malcolm “Mac” Shroyer and his wife Mary — a pair of school teachers who loved sailing — made their way down the Baja Peninsula and into La Paz. Mary was pregnant. After having their son Neil, they returned to the U.S. to continue teaching while they designed and built a 50-foot trimaran sailboat. In 1967, the family sailed back to La Paz to start a charter business. Competing with the locals was a tough sell to the Mexican authorities, so Shroyer sought a new venture.

Early in 1968, in Ensenada, Shroyer designed and built the first fiberglass molds in the same machete-like cut of the plywood skiffs used mostly by small-operation commercial fishermen. Also known as the “long boat” or “island boat,” pangas are in use worldwide today due to their ability to knife through the open water and launch and land through the surf. Mac is known as the father of the modern-day panga.

Shroyer also did some contract work for the Mexican Navy and in 1983, the crash of the Mexican economy left his family to start over. They had a small dock in La Paz from the failed charter business and over the decades built that into a marina. Today, with over 120 slips of all sizes, Marina La Paz is one of the largest marina operations in Mexico.

Adults $12. Ages 15 and under free.

Tickets: sandiegointernationalboatshow.com