Rich Stevenson - The benefits of a good dinner
Monhegan. So many great and unexpected memories….where to begin. For me it started in the early 90s where we had combined the crew of Scott Harris’s J29 “Haymaker“ on which I was a “regular newbie”, a term I think I just made up, and sailed with Gary Blenkhorn and crew on his Pearson 36 “Illusion”. I learned a lot and fairly quickly under Scott’s watchful eye as well as the eye of his regular cockpit, Jeff Smith, and later my Captain on the J24 “2nd chance “. Balancing that with Captain Gary Blenkhorn, who always had a good story and/or a joke locked and loaded. The two teams kept it interesting by seeing who could make the most miles on their watch and for me, I mostly just didn’t want to make a mistake. The best core memories for me was the light conversations, and staring at the Spinnaker in the middle of the night, trying to discern it from the starry backdrop, or constantly looking at the speed when the wind picked up looking for our personal best digits on the speedo, interrupted only by good food popping out of the companion way.
Later, I would do the Monhegan on my Olsen 30 “Roach Coach”. On occasion, I would wonder if I had learned anything. The first time Roach Coach did the race, I did it double handed with my college friend and roommate, Alex Turner. Right at the start, somehow we ended up in a wind hole and watched the entire fleet sail away. We did a “reverse horizon job“, another term I think I just made up. In any case, what ensued should not be repeated in front of your children or the Coast Guard. We decided that all was lost, so we got out the grill and started grilling a great salmon dinner and drank copious amounts of Budweiser. We figured this race is only an overnighter, and we’ve pulled overnighters in college before. As it turns out, as we approached the Mark at Mohegan, we were entering another windless hole, but to our surprise, the entire fleet was sitting there motionless. Navigation lights were everywhere. Roach Coach was a ULDB (ultra light displacement boat) and liked these conditions, but it even surprised us that we were carrying our momentum through the entire fleet and ended up in front of the pack in what felt like 30 minutes. Flashlights were lighting up our sails as boats were trying to figure out who the hell was driving through the fleet. We had our little portable Honda generator going as we entered the fleet. Running on nothing but our salmon dinner and Budweiser, we kept things going and eventually ended up on the podium. I’m not sure what place we finished, but I’m pretty sure we ended up with a couple of trophies. A perfect example of what I had learned from Scott, “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings” as he liked to say.
