Skipper's I Would Love to Sail With / For:

Other The Local Pub
1

<font color=“green”>It’s the PUB, we can “talk” big boats here - right?</font id=“green”>

My two favorite skippers - mainly for their “attitude” - their sailing abilty wasn’t too shabby either. Unfortunately, we lost Tom way too early!

TED TURNER - and his “attitude” (a bit opinionated) toward the NYYC - heck - I even went out and bought and raced in my own engineer’s cap!

TOM BLACKALLER - in both monohulls and multihulls, the guy was great. A “Bobbie Knight” kind of guy (brothers maybe ??) Not too many sailors can step from an AC boat on to a Formula 40 catamaran and drive each of them equally as well. Too bad he “left us” so soon.

OTHERS OF NOTE - and why:

Randy Smyth - sailed against him, and his multihull experience and ability blew me away! (multiple Tornado Olympics, Worrell 1000, off-shore events, etc.).

Charlie & Johnathan McKee - again, great multihull sailors - and moving to the “skiff type” classes Charlie continued to demonstrate his sailing abilities.

Gino Morrelli - one of the founders of the 18 Square Meter Class [:-bulb] who turned his love for multihulls into a properous business designing some major multihull “world class” designs - Playstation and the WaterRat “A” Class to name a few.

Meade & Jan Gougeon - first class world champion DN Class ice boat sailors, developed/introduced the WEST System products, and builders of some great sailboats… Tornado class boats, Adrenaline, Rogue Wave, Slingshot, Golden Daisy and a host of others. Also the fact that Meade continues to win or place in the top 3 on Port Huron to Mackinac races sailing his (old) 35 year old trimaran !

Buddy Melges - super inland lakes sailor, and builder designer of the various Scow classes, and of course his world famous Melges 24 and 30 foot sport boats.

Charlie Morgan - at one time, the undisputed “king” of off-shore racer/cruisers.

Hobie Alter and sons - all of the beach cat lines, and their Hobie 33 monohull.

and - If given the chance, I would love to spend a day following [i]Nigel Irens /i around his office and just picking up on his design ideas regarding the big, off-shore multihulls.

Of course, there are many more…

How about yours ?

<font color=“green”>Added by edit</font id=“green”>

2

Dick, I liked Blackaller too, except for the cold shoulder he gave our friends on Adrenaline. There may be more to the story (his side), but on the surface he seemed to be afraid of the technology that boat brought to the US F-40 scene.

The Other Matt

3

Yeah - he and a bunch of French multihull promoters ! Of course, he was competing on a cat!

4

Hmm well lets see…

Reg White Local hero, member of my home club. Co-designer, builder and Gold Medalist in the Olympic Tornado class. Not forgetting all the Little America’s cup stuff and his awsome new range of cats, I want one of these!!: http://www.swell-catamarans.co.uk/boats/default.asp?id=2&ty=2

Adrian Thompson Designer of Aqua Quorum;- the first open class boat to sport a canting keel, and the Ill fated Team Phillips, Both awsome boats, one infininitly more successfull than the other, both are on the bottom now…

Ellen Macather What can you say?

Luff 'em & leave 'em.

5

Well…besides myself (since I think I’m better then anyone [;)] )I would like to be on an E22 with DC.

6

hmmmm…
well I met Eric Tabarly once in Brest (France)…had a 5 min talk with him…I was really impressed…I’d love to sail with him…a bit too late unfortunately !

but any skipper will do the job…'specially when you rc sail alone [:p]

Wis

if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!

http://wismerhell.esmartdesign.com/index.htm

7

Randy Smyth has got to be my favorite. I have sailed against him many times and even partied with the guy. This guy knows multihulls!

8

From a designer’s point of view:
Bill Lee
Bruce Farr
Ben Lexcen
From a skipper’s point of view:
Tom Whidden
Stuart Walker
Gary Jobson
John Bertrand
From a management point of view:
Roy Disney
Jim Kilroy
John Marshall
Bondy

9

Well, for historical figures there’s always Charlie Barr and the incomparable Sherman Hoyt. What a character that guy was – the way he snookered Tom Sopwith into losing a sure thing in the 1934 Cup was pure genius.

Cheers,

Earl

10

hmmmmmmmmmm
i fine it intresting that nobody would like to sail with coutts. or dickson? coutt and dickson and thrown in bertrand would my picks. i would love to get on a boat with dickson first then coutts , the bertrand, the designer would be ben lexen, than dave pedrick. followed very close with bruce kirby.
cougar

11

well lucky me…Cougar will be jealous.
I grew up sailing with Coutts at the Ravensbourne boating club In Dunedin.
I can tell you that he dreamed of winning the AC from a young age.

I am with Steve as far as designers are concerned… wouldnt mind a bit of a chat with Bruce Farr.
Actually I wouldn’t mind a chat with Steve himself…seems very switched on from what I have read around here and other places.

Brett

12

My point of view on this subject

Seeing Iain Murray standing at the side of an eighteen foot skiff with a chain saw to “alter” the shape of the bow and lower the free board was unbelieveable. ( this was two months before he won his first world title in eighteens)

Ben Lexcen (Bob Miller): for his years of inovation. In rigging etc
He first played with winglets on rudders on skiffs in about 1964 on the Brisbane river.

Peter Gilmour: nothing else has to be said.

Rob Brown: got more out of an eighteen foot skiffs than anyone (except for Iain Murray) also in the crew of Australia 2

And a personal friend of mine Adrian Finglas. He sailed in all sorts of dinghies and now travels the world getting paid to go sailing. He once got “bored” racing 470 dinghies so decided to go out and race without the rudder and still finished in the top two in that race.

Worst memory goes without saying “One Australia” breaking in half.

That’s it for me.
Peter

13

Greg,

Sailing with DC on his Etchells? Oh my - Don’t go there!

Back in '93, I was racing at Eastern YC up in Marblehead and they hosted the Etchells North Americans. DC showed up and paraded around the grounds with his nose so high in the air that he even the hoity Easterners were put off. He had showed up with a boat that was so new, the gel coat was not even dry yet.

Day1, race2, First windward mark - DC rounds in the top 10 and decides to gybe set at the offset mark. No sooner had he gybed the boat onto port then there was a loud crunch as he got T-boned by one of the boats still headed upwind. DC was way in the wrong and now had a 3 foot diameter hole in the side of his boat to prove it.

He sails back into the YC and pulls his boat out of the water. Of course he is determined to finish the regatta. He has his crew drive the boat down to Newport where it was built and they put the boat back into the mold and work all night repairing the hole. DC of course does not go with him. In fact no one is quite sure where he went as he completely disappeared. He did not even talk to the guy that he fouled (who also, by the way had some decent damage to his boat)

Around 8 a.m. the next morning, the boat arrives in the EYC parkinglot and the crew (who have been up all night doing fiberglass work) proceed to rig the boat. By 9am they are in the water and on there way out to the race course. The only sign of the previous day’s altercation is the large gray circular repair on the side of his otherwise white boat.

DC does pretty well on day 2 as I recall despite his crews’ exhaustion from being up for 2 days straight. At the party that night DC is nowhere to be seen, nor are his crew members. I would guess that the crew were probably crashed out at the hotel - finally getting a chance to rest after 2 days of racing and a night of fiberglass work. Who knows were DC was - probably too embarrased to show his face. Some of his competitors decided to poke a little fun at the great DC and wandered out into the parking lot after the party with a red magic marker. They painted the gray circle on the side of DCs boat with a series of concentric red circles so that it looked like a target.

DC was forced to sail the rest of the regatta with a target painted on the side of his boat. As I recall, he finished 5th or 6th in the regatta. I believe Jud Smith, a local marblehead sailor, won. I don’t think DC even bothered to show up to collect his trophy.

So for me, you could not pay me enough to crew for DC. No way!

Who would I like to crew for?

I sailed with John Bertrand when I was a kid a couple of times. I was a little too young to know the difference, but he was awesome to sail with.

I sailed a Transpac with Bill Lee on his 3rd or 4th SC70 back in the early 80s. I was pretty young then too, but I recall he was really cool as well.

I know Buddy Melges really well. What a character! I would not think twice if he invited me for a sail on anything…

From what I know of Paul Cayard, I think he would be really awesome to sail with.

I heard Peter Holmberg give a talk down in the BVI and he was a really interesting guy. I think he would be fun to sail with as well…

  • Will

  • Will

Will Gorgen

14

From a sailing standoint Paul Elvstrom was my idol; his emphasis on physical training helped me a lot in the early days.(As did Paul Schreck!)
From a design standpoint its hard to beat John Reichel and Jim Pugh.
And for sheer innovation Garry Hoyt, Matt Brown, Albert Calderon and Bill Burns.
And the nice (brilliant) guy award goes to Bill Lee who has helped and inspired me a lot.

Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing

15

does anybody know what became of the canada 1 skipper
terry mclaughlin
cougar
he seemed to have a good idea , about what to do with a 12

16

<font face=“Arial”></font id=“Arial”>
Right you Yankees, where’s the mention of some of the Kiwi greats.
I am fortunate to of had a sail over the years with the greats from down under, the late great Sir Peter Blake, Grant Dalton, Chris Dickson, Earle Williams (probably better known as KZ7 bowman in 87)and many other great Kiwi skippers not known above the South Pacific.
Without a doubt nearly every great yacht from the last 20 years has come from a Kiwi design office, whether it it be Bruce Farr based in the US, Ron Holland based in Ireland or others like Davidson, Elliott or Murray Ross.
Never underestimate us Kiwi’s. We can and always will be the best!!![:-angel][}}:-|>>]

17

I agree. But Michael Collberg (skipper) and Peter Norlin (designer, skipper) is a must. In every other respect it is Christina Stenbeck, the daughter of The Victory Challange sponsor, Jan Stenbeck. In fact, I invited Christina to my Norlin designed 2.4mr, but she politely declined. However, the 2.4mr World Championship will be held in Gavle, Sweden this year. At the same waters that Christina runs her main factory, Korsnas. So I will try again, for sure.
Regards,
Booster

18

rob you sailed with dickson. i bet you could sahare some sotries?
i would be interested
cougar

19

I disagree with all of you. The Team Panorama (match-racing stars), helmed by Marie Bjorling is a must for a real man. During the Swedish Match in Marstrand last year I managed to sneek into the forpik. And the rest is history.
Regards,
Booster