National Racing
One summer I said to Lee Lyon, “I have an idea.”
Scow sailing was pretty much confined to the Midwest. There were four different classes: C, D, E, and A. The scow sailors in our region were probably as good as any in the country but I had a craving for the “big-time.”
A shadow passed across Lee’s face, and he replied, “Uh-uh, not me. Find someone else. My toes are still frozen from last winter.”
“But Lee, you’re the man for the job. We have to go to the Finn National Championships.”
“That’s an Olympic class!”
“Yes, and we’re going to do it.”
Actually, Lee is an avid sportsman, so once I planted the seed, I just waited for it to grow. Lee agreed to charter some Finns and tackle the competition.
A Finn is a single-handed boat (no crew), and it’s a lot to handle, especially off the wind. In heavy air you might wear five sweatshirts under your lifejacket and dunk yourself in the water to get them wet. The process would add 20 pounds or more of weight, enough to give you some good leverage. I remember one of the Finn National Champions saying to me “the fatter the head the faster the boat.”
Lee and I practiced on the lake all summer and went to a couple of small regattas where we did fairly well. The eliminations for the Nationals were on Lake Lanier, outside Atlanta, and that’s where we met the big boys. To make things even, everyone switched boats after each race.
This was rugged sailing made worse by a series of thunderstorms that were passing through the area that weekend. As a storm would pass, the wind would get completely out of control and we would stand, holding our boats chest deep in the water, for as long as an hour until the wind became “sailable” again.
I was holding my own until the wind really came up on the last day. I used a hiking stick to steer, with everything but the calves of our legs hanging outside the boat. On that last day I broke my hiking stick, turned over, and finished “just out of the money” for the Nationals. I decided to save my hiking stick for the mountains.
My other adventure into National sailing was in the Laser class, another highly competitive (Olympic) single-handled fleet. Lee couldn‘t resist when I told him I had chartered boats and we were going to sail in the National Championship in San Diego. We brought our wives, registered at the Coronado Hotel and hitchhiked down the beach where more than a hundred sailors were preparing for the regatta. It was the big-time and these guys were good.
The funny thing is we were always picked up by the first car when hitchhiking. This surprised us so we finally asked a navy noncom in a VW why he had stopped for us. He said, “I just wondered where two old duffers in funny hats, shorts, and carrying big yellow duffle bags could possibly be going.”
This Championship was just before I underwent my first cataract surgery, and my eyesight was terrible. Nothing like Mr. Magoo on the racecourse!
The wind was unbelievable. There was just a spit of land between the bay and the ocean so it was like sailing in the ocean without waves, although they could build up in time. The wind was usually fairly light to moderate in the morning but would pipe up strong in the afternoon.
After the first day they split the fleet into the Gold Fleet and Bronze Fleet, based on that day’s results. I made the Gold Fleet! I was good in light to medium air and did well to windward in heavy air. I recall one race where I rounded the weather mark in second or third place and by the time, we finished the reaching leg I was fifteenth! Were those guys ever fast on the reach.
If I remember correctly, I finished in the low 20s. We had a great time, though, and it was a wonderful introduction to laser sailing, which I always enjoyed. When we moved to Aspen, I introduced laser sailing to Ruedi and eventually gave two lasers to the Ruedi Yacht Club that they are still using today.