Racing Days
"While we all love the sensation of connecting a series of perfect tacks and jibes, it’s the people we sail with what’s most important. Our relationships are those upon which the sport is built..."
—Bill Buchholz (US-3314)
Total blind luck, but I can boast that I only sailed one Star boat race in my life and I won it.
After graduating from Northwestern, I went to work for my father in the Chicago area selling construction equipment. There was no place close to sail a “C” boat. Rather than give up sailing, I signed on to crew for Dick Stearns, one of the top Star sailors in the United States. I’d have to check the records, but I believe Dick had won the World Championship a year or so before and winning the World in the Stars (an Olympic Class) is a very big deal. I think The Star is one of the most beautiful sailboats built, and because it is a keelboat it can handle any weather.
We sailed out of Wilmette Harbor where there was a hot fleet, traveling to local regattas. Competition was tough but we were usually first and never worse than third.
Dick called one Sunday. “I can’t make the race today. You go ahead and take the boat. Good luck.”
This was the first time I’d ever skippered a Star in competition. There was a big wind shift on the first weather leg, which I caught just right, and from then on, the race was a series of broad reaches, so it was easy for me to defend my lead and I had a lucky win.
When Robbie and I moved back to Kansas City all our weekends and vacations were taken up with sailing. By this time, the Lotawana fleet had a number of good sailors including Dwight Westholt, Lee Lyon and Fritz Rudabush. We joined the Inland Lake Yachting Association and traveled to regattas all over the Midwest. We even started a fall regatta of our own on Lotawana and attracted top sailors from all over the Inland. Buddy Melges (later Mallory Cup Winner, Olympic Champion, America’s Cup Winner) was a frequent visitor who stayed at our house.
Robbie was my crew and, when the wind was high, we took on various third crews, including Betty “Buckets” Byers, who lived next door with her husband George and their kids, Jeni and George. A great camaraderie developed between the sailors from various lakes where the regattas were held. If we went to Okoboji, we stayed with the Huse. If we went to Minnetonka, we stayed with the Hurds and so it went. Since none of us had any money, it made economic sense and we developed lasting friendships.
Traveling to regattas was time consuming. I was occasionally able to talk Robbie into driving and towing the boat; then I could fly to meet her and get an extra day at work. That all ended with a regatta at Lake Maxinkuckee in Indiana when a wheel came off the trailer 150 miles from the lake. She left the trailer and the boat at a filling station and met my plane more than a little distressed.
Since we had come all this way and didn’t want to miss the regatta, I borrowed a trailer and spent the night going back to retrieve our boat. Bleary-eyed from no sleep, I was back at the launching pad the next morning where I managed to add to the calamity and dropped the contents of our drawer into 30 feet of water losing our stopwatches, tools, etc. On top of that I didn’t sail well so it was a complete disaster.
I worked harder at it than most during my sailing years at Lotawana and won my share of club championships and local regattas. At the national level, I didn’t do so well. I finished near the top in several Inland regattas, including the biggest one of the summer, but a win eluded me. We did manage to win two Inter-Lake championships, which was the next best level of competition.
Those were extraordinary years of competition and companionship.