Lunch With Carl

All this Frisco sailing talk reminds me of a pretty funny story. Back when I used to be pretty good, I sailed in a few BBS's. Never did worth a damn (hey maybe I wasn't as good as I remember), although I did manage to break a mast once. Actually the owner did it but I was driving…but that's a whole 'nother story. -Ed.

This was a few years back (hell everything I did on the water was a few years back - I'm semi-retired now), and I was sailing in the BBS with the truly legendary Carl Eichenlaub on his latest Cadenza, this one the N/M 45. Never a particularly good boat, and a stone downwind, we were at least sort of in the hunt, I believe ending up fourth in class for the series.

It was the first race, pretty breezy, and we got to the weather mark in fair shape. I was the tactician for the series, and it was really cool to be sailing with Carl. Those of you who know Carl, know that he has some sort of a problem with one of his hands, and always wears something like an oven mitt over it. Okay, so as we rounded the top mark, we set and didn't quite get squared enough because as soon as the kite filled, the boat started to round up.

I looked over to see poor Carl, with his one good hand trying like hell to keep the fuckin' thing from spinning out, only to lose the battle and get thrown off the wheel and end up on the cockpit floor; he just couldn't hold that bitch down with the one hand. I quickly grabbed the wheel, and Carl, as nonplussed as ever, just looks up at me from the floor and says, "I think Scooter (that's me) better steer on the runs."

It was one of the funniest fucking things that I've ever been a part of. Not because of Carl's hand problem, god bless him, it was just the whole scene of seeing him get launched and how completely unfazed he was by it all. It was one of those things that you couldn't laugh at the time (too much going on, the owner getting bucked, etc), but afterwards the boys and I (after a couple of belts) laughed so hard, we almost pissed ourselves. One of the funniest moments in sailing with one of the great men in sailing. It just doesn't get any better than that.

The Ed.