LASERS IN "SAILING WORLD"

This is an e-mail that I sent out to friends that was enough fun that I will put it in here.  Some Laser stuff. plus.

Sailing World magazine. It came yesterday at my house. What a Surprise! Opened the cover to find a two page add from Sperry Topsider with pictures Of LASERS across the top and lesser boats across the bottom. Now the extra personal touch--- Paul Sperry who designed the first topsider (the first shoe with a thousand little cuts in the sole so won't slip on a wet deck) had a great grandfather Capt. Sereno Armstrong. My mother was an Armstrong, so I might be related to the Sperry Topsider. I have an Armstrong cousin working on the possible connection.

Then there is a few more pages into it a great picture of Fujimo (a "50 footer") from the first Key West race week. More on that at the end.

Then toward the back is a long article with pictures about the Park City, Utah Laser Fleet with a lot of unanswered question like how powerful is the air at 6,000 feet.

OK, back to FIRST Key West Race week. Sam had just bought a third ownership in a J-24 and John Smittle is going to show him how to sail the boat. So I am doing fore deck !!! Yes, yes, just follow the instructions given to you from the cockpit. So everything is going OK. We are in the last start and the smallest boat. Now this is the last race on Friday. Wind is up to twenty. Almost half of our fleet doesn't start. No problem on our boat-- John has never seen a wind he didn't like. This is triangle course day and around the gybe mark, Sam gybes the pole and the crew swings the spinnaker. (A little background-- the J-24 will surf down waves but not plane flat out. The J-22 which is 1,000 pounds lighter will just plane away in 20 knots wind.) Now the 50 footers who start first on the same course come sailing through our fleet. Fujimo sails by to leeward and John jumps on their quarter wave. Foredeck person on J-24 sits  just behind the mast after the spinnaker is up and holding the vang ready to release it if the boat starts to round up. We go bow down and stern up (It is a big quarter wave.) Our speed goes from hull speed of about 6.5 knots to the hull speed of the 50 footer (about 12 ). Fujimo is about 10 feet away and their crew is laughing and smiling at us. We hang on for about 1/2 mile and then round up and loose the wave because Sam doesn't ease the vang soon enough. No worry, here comes the next 50 footer, Abracadabra, John jumps on her quarter wave and we ride that through to the leeward mark. We win our class for that day with a tow from the 50 footers. Wondering about that oriental sounding name Fujimo? We understood that the owner was having trouble with his wife and it stood for F-- U Jane I'm Moving Out. I don't really know, but that is the story.

Take a look at the mag.
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