I shouldn't even be telling this story, because although I'm half of it, it's not really my story - it's Brent's. But I don't know if he puts stuff like this down (in a blog or elsewhere), and it'd be a shame to lose it, because it's pretty good.
I've been sailing small boats most of my life; first dinghies at the Calgary sailing school, then Fireballs in the racing school (where I first fell in love with the trapeze), then back to a dinghy - my own first boat - for a couple of years, then finally to a Mystere 17 cat when I was 21. Those first few years with the Mystere were pretty great, because I'd intentionally gotten a boat that I knew was a well beyond what I could handle, especially solo. So while I was learning I constantly had friends out with me, and even pickup crew I didn't know, until I learned enough, sorted it all out, and tweaked the boat enough to really be able to hold it down alone. And I became an evangelist, always happy to get the chance to take out people who'd never been on cats - or ever sailed at all - as well as the folks with experience. And more than one bought cats themselves after sailing with me, which is a nice compliment. But I'm not a drifter. If there isn't enough wind for me to raise a hull and get out on the wire, I'm not much interested in rigging up. I wanna get out there and jam.
It's now 2021 and I'm a bald, middle-aged greybeard git. Two years ago I got a serious itch for a new ride (there have been a number of pretty exciting boats over the years), something that would present a serious challenge. For a number of reasons I'll be sure to get into somewhere sometime, I settled on an old SuperCat 19 and made a (really great) road trip to Long Island NY to get it. It's taking a couple of years to really get it together, and it still scares the hell out of me - it's a boat that seasoned beachcat sailors call "a handful".
So back in mid-July I took it out to Lake Newell (Brooks, AB) for a weekend. There was a big regatta on with boats and sailors coming in from all over the place (province?); I don't race, but it can be fun to hang out and meet a bunch of new people, especially when you've got a bitchen ride.
I was out in the parking lot, stepping the mast, when another bald, middle-aged greybeard git strolled up, introduced himself, and said that he was on 14th St S in Calgary (very near the Glenmore Reservoir) a week or two previous and saw some old guy in a beaten-up black Subaru pulling a big cat with the Boston Whaler logo on it. (At this point you need to know that for a couple of years in the early 80s Boston Whaler made the SuperCats, but in 1983 sold the works back off to Tom Haberman, who's been building and supporting the SuperCat and ARC catamarans designed by Bill Roberts ever since at Aquarius Sail in Minnesota. Fantastic guy, fantastic boats.) He said that what was surprising was the "Boston Whaler" part, as he didn't know they'd ever built cats. After I finished giving him shit for calling me "some old guy", he went on to say that when he was 15 (about 40 years previous, and making him about six years my junior), he had a Sea Spray, a single-hand 15' cat that used to be very popular around here. He said that whenever the wind really came up on Glenmore - enough to make it exciting - all the other boats would pack up and go home... except for him and one other guy on a Tornado, just the two of them left, giving it the business.
And as he told this story, it was familiar, because that's how I've described sailing over the years - we're the guys who go out when everyone else is calling it a day because the wind's too high.
So I told him "Yeah, that sounds about right, except for the "Tornado" part, which is an understandable mistake, because the Mystere is a slightly scaled down Tornado that was designed as a trainer - they look a lot alike. That was me. So why the hell didn't you ever ask to come aboard? I would have put you on the trapeze and we would have had a gas."
When he regained his composure, he said "What can I say? I was a shy 15-year-old." At that point there was only one thing to do, and that was to invite him out for a 40-year-overdue sail on the SuperCat. It was a light day, so we weren't out there hammering nails, but it was great to hang out for a couple of hours. And for the rest of the weekend - and weeks afterward, as we kept running into each other at Glenmore Sailboats or at the reservoir, he'd launch into the story for the benefit of anyone else around: "Lemme tell you about this guy..."
So, you see, it's really more his story than mine, and I'll be looking for another chance next summer to finally get him out on the wire.
