I was digging though some old material and found a photo of me sailing our family Soling in 1973.
It was the spring of 1973. My dad had a business commitment but he wanted to have the boat in Newport Harbor Yacht Club's Olympic Classes Regatta. I had been racing my Laser for a little over a year and dad felt confident so he let me race the Soling while he attended business. I called a few people and cobbled a crew together. On the trip out the harbor entrance we started to get a taste of the weather we were in for. We snugged everything down and concentrated on not beating the boat up.
We actually had it pretty easy. The Fins and Tornados had a very tough time and many sailors drove their boats through the breakers right up on the beach to get out of the water. There were Fins scattered from Huntington Beach to Laguna that day! After the day's races were over my dad met us at the club. He didn't know how windy it had been. He saw many very beat up sailors and boats coming in and someone told his it was 50 knots out there. He was surprised and relieved when we pulled in with no damage to either ourselves or the boat.
In this particular photo, John Ross-Duggen is steering. John is a many-time Hobie Cat World Champion in both 14s and 16s. We were both undergrads at University of California, Irvine at the time. Shortly after this race John was attending medical school in North Carolina when he was struck by a drunk driver and paralyzed. John went on to finish medical school and has a successful practice. He won a bronze medal last summer sailing in the Paralympics, run in parallel with the Olympic games in Atlanta.
In the picture, I am forward, pumping the bilge; we hadn't installed bailers yet. In the middle is Steve Dietrich.
After the first upwind leg I needed a break and asked John to steer for a few minutes while I rested. John immediately got the boat up on a plane, steering straight as an arrow, commenting, "Once they get to this speed, they all steer the same!" He then proceeded to carve up and down the face of every wave that came our way.
This photo was taken from the race committee boat as we crossed the finish line. The swells are smaller in this area and the wind is lighter. Still, it's a great picture! It was printed on the cover of NHYC's publication, On The Wind.
Hey, Isn't NHYC's publication called Hard On The Wind? Why, yes, you're right. During the 70's some commodore's wife made them change the title from Hard On The Wind to On The Wind because she thought the name sounded too suggestive. After a few misguided years of the interim name, it got changed back to the original name and everyone was happy.
