One Sailor’s Story

by Skip Hirsh
January, 2007

In the early 1980’s John Butler walked into my office at work and said, “My family has a Lightning, I’m thinking about towing it down and racing with the fleet on the Potomac.  Are you interested in crewing?”  Rarely will you find a conversation where the parties involved are laboring under more false impressions than this one.

John had heard that my family had a large sailboat and that I had for many years crewed for them.  This was true, I suppose, if one considers crewing to be laying in the sun on the deck of a 32 foot cruising “fat boat” and occasionally supporting a lazy tack by pulling lines and cranking winches with the free hand that was not occupied with keeping a can of Budweiser in a proper drinking angle.   John, not knowing that he was talking to someone didn’t know a halyard from a sheet and had never seen a hiking strap in his life, thought he had made a lucky find.  I on the other hand, with my vast sailing knowledge, thought I had a CLUE about racing.  Luckily neither of us knew how very wrong we were until we were committed to our first Spring Series. 

From that completely misguided beginning we worked our way through several years and two sailboats, the first of which had a sail number in the 9000s and a wooden hull and mast.  The under-deck floatation was provided by a series of Mylar bags from wine boxes that John had scrounged from a local bar, and the backstay and the boom-vang each had two settings: “on” and “broken”. 

When we started, we had such lofty goals as “not coming in last in at least one race today”, and we worked our way up to goals like “finishing in the medal in one large regatta”.  We managed to achieve both, but to me that wasn’t the big story.  It was how we improved that made it special.  I mean, John had some racing experience and was a pretty good driver, but his only consistent crew had to learn to put down his beer BEFORE the tack, and had to mark his right glove with a big “S” so he could figure out who had the right-of-way.   No we didn’t get better on raw talent, we got better because of people like Doc Gilbert, Frank Gallagher, Jim Dillard, Reed Barrett, and John Ogle.  As long as we were willing to work hard and keep trying, someone in Fleet 50 always had time to help.

From this auspicious opening began my long and rewarding friendship with Fleet 50.  It seemed that no matter how much I put into the fleet, I got more out.  When John had to give up sailing for a while, it seemed like I could always find a ride.  In most cases I learned how to be a better racer, getting advice and training from old hands like Reed Barrett and Bobby Astrove.  In some cases I was able to teach new skippers what I had learned.  In some cases we all learned together… Several years in the middle on Ugly Bob with Christy Dillard at the tiller come immediately to mind.

By the mid 90’s I thought I had done it all.  I had raced in most of the East Coast races; I had drunk beer late into the night with of the some of the best Lightning sailors like the Allen’s and the Fishers… Heck, I had drunk beer late into the night with some of the greatest Lightning beer drinkers like Red Fehrle and the Buchanan brothers; I had left my sweat and my blood on the sails of 20 or 30 different Lightnings; and I had at one time or another flown, crashed, rolled, broken, towed, carried, dropped, sunk or fallen out of each and every one of them.  What could possibly top that?

In 1996, Stuart White took over his own boat, and by doing so left an empty seat that I was invited to fill.  For the next 8 or 9 years I had the honor of flying the spinnaker and serving as ballast on a series of boats for Frank Gallagher.  I learned that with all the things I had done so far, I hadn’t seen anything yet.  We ran through foredeck crew like water, some running screaming from the boat as soon as it touched the dock, and an heroic few like Lolita Hart who hung in there for years despite all the pain and abuse we put her through.  We had a great division of labor: I flew the kite, and Frank drove; I fixed things that broke mid-race, he found ways to win (and occasionally lose) that no one had ever thought of before; on out-of-town regattas he’d show me where the best bars were, and I’d help him find the boat in the morning; he yelled at me… and I yelled at him; he put up with my mistakes, and I got to do some of the best sailing of my life and made a good friend as well.

I learned that going fast wasn’t always about high tech and new gear, I learned that there is nothing that compares to a screaming spinnaker reach with nothing but a prayer keeping the whole thing from collapsing in a spray of fiberglass and river water; I learned that Lolita has very little regard for middle crewmen who get in her way when she’s in a hurry; and I learned that Maryann, who has to live with Frank both on and off the water, is a saint.

In 2006, I let work and school and home remodeling in North Carolina keep me away from the river and sailing, and the fleet, and now, I am only a few weeks from moving away.  I will miss the competition; I will miss the pleasure… and the pain of a good sailboat race; I will miss the sound of a perfect spinnaker set; I will miss the taste of the first beer after 6 hours of being beaten by the sun and the wind and the river. But most of all I will miss Fleet 50.  You have been my friends, my pastime, my support, my entertainment, and my family for almost 20 years.  I know that I owe you more than I can ever repay.  May the winds lift you when you need a break, and never die until you make the up-river turn; may you sail number always be missed when you are over early; and may the beer never run out until the party’s over. 

Thank you all, and …

Cheers,

 Skip Hirsh