Punked by Bruce Nelson

I'll be the first to admit that we don't always get it right around here. I also know that I often shoot from the hip, have some pretty strong opinions, and am not shy about voicing them. Having said that, we don't ever purposely print anything that we know is not true, either. We opine, we take shots, we comment, we report, we gossip - hell, you know what we do here.

We also get our fair share of criticism - when you talk as much smack as we do, you occasionally step on a toe or two..

What most people do when they have a problem with something we say is to write or call and tell us why or how we were wrong. We ALWAYS respond to this, and are more than happy to present a perspective that we perhaps might have missed.

But you don't write or call if you are Bruce Nelson. No, if you are Nelson, you try a slightly different approach.

I have critiqued Nelson's work in the past, but in my opinion, nothing particularly harsh. I've said it before and I'll say it again: A smarter and better sailor you're not likely to find. That he is a talented designer is also of little question. I'm just not a fan of some of his boats, and I've said so. There was also a structural problem of some sort with Yassou, the TP 52 he designed, and we reported what we knew, along with pictures. At no point has Nelson ever said a single word to me about anything we've printed.

I saw him on the dock at SDYC Sunday before the start of the New Year's Day Race. He stopped to ask what kind of boat the BluSail 24 was and I told him. I then chatted him up about the AC, and before I knew what was going on, he was pushing me in the water!

I grabbed his shirt on the way in, and nearly ripped it half, but I couldn't get a good enough grip on him and I got douched and he didn't. He did help me out of the water, but I was fucking stunned. He walked away, but it took me a minute to grasp the situation: He pulled a cheap shot move and pushed me in the water while I was completely unsuspecting, because of what I had written here at SA!

I followed him up to his car and told him that was a fucking bullshit move, and what was his fucking problem? First he tried to tell me that "he was collecting on a bet", and I called bullshit on that, and then he said it was from everyone in SD that I had dissed, including him. I again told him it was chickenshit and if he or anyone else had a problem, they should just tell me, not pull a bitch ass move like that. We were nose to nose jawing at each other, and we eventually started to come to some sort of understanding. I was standing there soaked, and his shirt was ripped in half, so I felt that while I had been punked, I had at least gotten a piece of him in the process. Amazingly, he gave me a pair of shorts and another shirt, and we sort joked about it a bit before I went sailing.

The more I thought about it though, the more pissed I became. Look, some might say I have it coming, that I need to get the same as I give, whatever. And of course I know that I can and often should be critiqued for some of the stuff I say. But push me, completely unaware, into the water? It was a chickenshit move. So when I saw him again after the race, I told him as much. He just smiled as if to say "so what?", and I then I was pissed. Genuinely so. "Fuck you Nelson," I said. "That was a bitch move. You're fucked." He told me the same thing, got in his car and drove off.

I went home and wrote Nelson an email telling him again that I thought that what he did was complete bullshit, but because he's a guy that I've known for awhile, and someone whose talents I respect, that if he apologizes, I'll be happy to move forward. We'll see what, if anything, he has to say.

My wife tells me that I should make something funny out of this, and while I can see that it does have a certain comedic quality (it must have looked very funny to see me go for a swim), still, I think it was a fucked move. I might have expected Nelson to get in my grill and tell me that I was full of shit, but not punk me like that. Oh yeah, I also sprained my right thumb trying to grab the bastard as he was pushing me in. Believe me, I don't think too many of you would think it was more funny than fucked.

But I am curious, what would your reaction be if this happened to you?

-The Ed

Douched

Here for all to see is your faithful Ed, very fucking wet. That's my good buddy Nelson, strolling away. What you don't see is the fact that I have no idea what planet I'm on at that moment, and Nelson with his new look open front shirt. Good times, indeed.