Jill,
Thanks for speaking to Eric about letting me win a race on the second day of the High Sierra Regatta last weekend !
Bummer you had to drive "Team Poulsen" home Saturday night; you missed what has got to be one of the classic races in the young history of the F16 international class! I know Doc well enough to guess he summed up the regatta with a couple terse, self deprecating remarks, (while sliding his 52nd High Sierra Regatta Champion plaque into the trophy case); I won’t add my verbose, self aggrandizing narrative here (though I promise to relay it to you in person at the next regatta so that I can support the narration with vigorous gestures and sound effects whilst the theme to Rocky II plays on my CD player!), however, one quick vignette from that truly amazing race on Sunday :
As you know the RC run’s the start/finish line from the beach, just below mark #1, and an announcer calls the action (about 120 dingy’s sailing various courses all at the SAME TIME ! ) to the fans just like a Monday Night Football game…Well, Doc had me covered and beaten with about a mile to sail to the bottom mark .By this time (near the end of a very long race), the wind had ramped up to a gusty 17 – 20 knt. , Southerly slamming tangentially into an ominous black cell that flashed lightening in the distance! I’d pretty much given up on passing Doc and resigned myself to (another), second place when – I kid you not – I jibed into a 20 knot fist of breeze that launched me straight down the course, full on wild, past a slack jawed Eric Poulsen and two lengths from the mark! Rounding , I pulled on a mile of downhall and derotated until my sail was as flat as Wouter's regard for the Texel Ratings Committee ! I figured I’d use the waning remnant of that huge lift to pull off a two tack drive to the finish line. Doc, meanwhile was forced to short tack to lay the finish or risk being luffed short of the line by me ( I wouldn’t have done that, but let’s just keep that confidential). Anyhow, the racing is VERY close,the announcer is screaming into the microphone and people are leaving babies bobbing in the lake to run to the finish line ! The sky’s are growing dark , there’s thunder and lightening, people are yelling from the shore (this is a sail boat race mind you…) and I can feel Doc driving over me to fire another bullet into the scorers table!!! But then ,… the race ended…, and I’d beaten Doc by,( what witnesses estimate), was the width of a human Cornea !!! I don’t remember specifically what happened next, but I think it involved my being lofted triumphantly aloft on the shoulders of adoring fans each aspiring suddenly to buy an F16, whilst Eric dropped to his knees on the beach, broken , weeping, a small child kicked sand on him as she passed him to join the revellers at my side !!
Thanks Again Jill ,
Paul Kilkenny
USA #300
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