[Public-List] ...and the rest of the story

[Gordon Laco via Public-List]

Hello friends,

 

So as not to leave you hanging, here’s what happened in the Great Courtesy Flag controversy.

 

Nothing.

 

I’d advised my angry fellow club member that ingnorance rather than malice was behind our US visitors lack of courtesy flags.   True, they may be been kinder about their response, perhaps saying something like ‘sorry, we’ll bring one next time’ or whatever instead of whatever it was they’d said to him…  and certainly he could have been gentler in how he responded to whatever it was that offended him.   I’d suggested  to my friend that he either make himself scarce for a few days and thereby avoid irritating himself by the sight of the US flag sans courtesy flag, or decide to pin the issue on the innocence of the visitors.  He chose the latter.

 

So, the regatta is proceeding… there are eight 5.5’s here and the first day of racing yesterday went off without a hitch but for the German’s borrowed boat turning out to be completely unequipped.  All hands in the regatta plus a bunch of our members turned to and fudged up a working rig so that although the Germans missed the first day of racing, they’ll be out there today.  Oh, and Lufthansa Airline seems to have lost their sails…. 

 

And that, is what good racing, particularly international racing, is all about.  Great battles out on the water, then great camaraderie rebuilding each other’s boats back at the club, then great battles again the next day.  Sailor’s Valhalla. 

 

And that, as usual, reminds me of a story.   Earlier in my career I was the sales manager for a yacht fittings importer… we were national distributors for StaLok, Whitlock, Blue Wave, etc etc.  The company’s owner and president was a transplanted Brit who’d come to Canada in ’74 with the British sailing team for the Olympics that year, won a gold medal.  He laughed and laughed about how he went back to England, was knighted, fetted in parades, etc, then said ‘Thanks, I’ve decided to emigrate to Canada…’    He told me once that he had a patron during the Olympic year who’d come over to watch the racing and was very enthusiastic.  One day the patron noticed that my employer and his team mate were using 1,000 grit sand paper to fair their rudders… so on his own initiative the patron spent a day visiting all the hardware stores for miles around buying up ALL the 1000 grit paper, presenting it to the British team saying proudly  ‘now only we have it’.   My employer recalled that he was unhappy about this, and told the patron that’s not how one competes in yacht racing.  Together, the patron and my employer distributed the paper to all the other teams.

 

The Brits won Gold in Tornadoes that year, fighting clean and making friends.  That’s the way a regatta should be.  

 

Onwards.

 

Gord Surprise #426