bamamick
06-22-2008, 01:02 AM
I have written here of the time I spent sailing Windmills as a young guy.
I was 19 and bought an old fibreglass Newport Windmill with a wooden mast for $800. A buddy of mine and I ordered an unfinished aluminum section and built a mast and boom, rigged her right, painted the hull, and went out to race. We sailed her hard for a couple of years, my friend crewing for me when I wasn't sailing with him on his Lightning.
They used to hold the Southerns right down the road from me near Pensacola at the Grand Lagoon YC. Fantastic place to sail dinghies. It's in the intercoastal, but just behind a barrier island so that you get the sea breeze with flat water. Great place to sail Windmills. Anyway, that first year we went over there we beat five or six boats and finished something like 15th out of 21 or so. Not too bad considering the hull and our inexperience. At the trophy presentation they made a point of acknowledging everyone who came by presenting us with a wooden batten with our scores written on it. For some reason or another that batten was important to me. Maybe it's because it was my first real regatta as a driver? Maybe it's because it represents something of my lost innocence? I'm not sure, but I have the dang thing on the back seat of my truck right now! Thirty years later and I've still got this proof of my ineptitude as a Windmill sailor with me.
We sailed a couple of Southerns and a Midwinters down in south Florida, where we wound up with our best finish, an 11th of about 20. We were too big to sail Windmills together. At that Mids we would get to the weather mark in the top five almost every race, only to get gassed over and over off the wind. We were 8th going into the last race and I flipped us on the last leg. Good memories.
Tonight I was looking around and found this: www.windmillclass.org/photos/137.jpg and it was like a little slap in the face. So much time gone by that I will never get back. Thirty years and thousands of races. So many friends made and so many missed. Still, such wonderful memories. Lord, to be 19 again, hiking my butt off on that old crummy Windmill. Then again, to be 50 and hiking as much of my butt as I can get out on an old Finn, and to have lived the life I've lived? How very lucky have I been?
It's amazing how an old piece of wood, and the observance of a wonderful tradition, can bring such memories and emotions flooding back.
Mickey Lake
I was 19 and bought an old fibreglass Newport Windmill with a wooden mast for $800. A buddy of mine and I ordered an unfinished aluminum section and built a mast and boom, rigged her right, painted the hull, and went out to race. We sailed her hard for a couple of years, my friend crewing for me when I wasn't sailing with him on his Lightning.
They used to hold the Southerns right down the road from me near Pensacola at the Grand Lagoon YC. Fantastic place to sail dinghies. It's in the intercoastal, but just behind a barrier island so that you get the sea breeze with flat water. Great place to sail Windmills. Anyway, that first year we went over there we beat five or six boats and finished something like 15th out of 21 or so. Not too bad considering the hull and our inexperience. At the trophy presentation they made a point of acknowledging everyone who came by presenting us with a wooden batten with our scores written on it. For some reason or another that batten was important to me. Maybe it's because it was my first real regatta as a driver? Maybe it's because it represents something of my lost innocence? I'm not sure, but I have the dang thing on the back seat of my truck right now! Thirty years later and I've still got this proof of my ineptitude as a Windmill sailor with me.
We sailed a couple of Southerns and a Midwinters down in south Florida, where we wound up with our best finish, an 11th of about 20. We were too big to sail Windmills together. At that Mids we would get to the weather mark in the top five almost every race, only to get gassed over and over off the wind. We were 8th going into the last race and I flipped us on the last leg. Good memories.
Tonight I was looking around and found this: www.windmillclass.org/photos/137.jpg and it was like a little slap in the face. So much time gone by that I will never get back. Thirty years and thousands of races. So many friends made and so many missed. Still, such wonderful memories. Lord, to be 19 again, hiking my butt off on that old crummy Windmill. Then again, to be 50 and hiking as much of my butt as I can get out on an old Finn, and to have lived the life I've lived? How very lucky have I been?
It's amazing how an old piece of wood, and the observance of a wonderful tradition, can bring such memories and emotions flooding back.
Mickey Lake