In the late 1970s, Margaret and I enlisted Austin married couple, Lela Jane Akin and Bob Tinsman, as crew. We joined other Flying Scot skippers to charter 30-foot sloops and cruise the Grecian Islands. Because Greece and Turkey were at odds, the charter company proscribed that we sail similar routes that ended each night at the same dock. A Greek restaurant was always located near the pier. We were invited to their kitchens to see
Category: Sailing
Sailing Becalmed
You would think a color photograph of two 18-foot sailboats, spinnakers flying, featured on the cover of every Southwestern Bell phonebook serving a city housing over 108,000 people would be an easy computer lookup. Nope. Don Hutcheson took the picture. Set up his camera on the east shore of small Lytle Lake east of Abilene. Instructed John Crutchfield’s crew and Dick Elam’s crew to sail our 18-foot Flying Scot sailboats downwind in front of houses
Bruised Bluebonnets
Like the song says, “Beautiful Texas where the bluebonnets grow….” In early spring the flower grows wild in fields, on Facebook, as well as beside the highway. State Highway Department sows the seeds along the highway. Winter moisture and Texas abundance of sunshine create shows that slow admiring drivers. Artists cover canvases with blue flowers showing a little bit of white. At age 65, surrounded by Russian snow, I decided to teach myself how to
Seagoing Watches
This Old Man’s sleeping concerns have daughters’ attention. Oldest child even sent historical references to sleeping habits of yesteryears. Back when work habits set most sleep schedules. What Sheryl didn’t include was the four-hours-on, four- hours-off ‘watch’ time employed when sailing offshore. This skipper tried to assign watch duties when we four men sailed 36-foot Makaleka from Cape May, New Jersey to Block Island, Rhode Island. Two men on deck driving, two sleeping—except this skipper
Talk Story
In Hawaii’s summer clime, where I spent a year serving the state’s University, I soon learned from the Kamehameha School fourth-grade school teacher that locals liked to “talk story.” A frequently recounted story told about Pele, the volcano goddess who threw fire at Kamapua’a, the Pigman. He was a suitor who tried to follow her across the mountain divide called ‘Pali’ on Oahu Island. This fable led to a local saying, “Don’t take pig across the Pali.”
Sea Lawyer
Sailboat team racing not easy to explain. I’ll try. But helps if you have a lawyer on your team. We West Texans were new at sailing Snipes, a fifteen-foot sloop, but we challenged the oldest Snipe Fleet One–the Dallas skippers who sailed on White Rock Lake—to a team race. We trailed four boats from Abilene to Dallas and received our comeuppance. What we learned was that the old-time skippers don’t care if the newcomers have
Hornblower
My sea-going credentials included Sea Scout, a skipper who raced sailboats on lakes and oceans, a Navy reservist. But wished I could have commanded a historic square-rigged, man-of-war sailing vessel. Even if you are not as handsome as Gregory Peck who starred in the movie Captain Hornblower, helps if you have read all of the Hornblower sea-going fiction. Plus read the Jack Aubrey sailing adventures. Or walked the decks of ‘Old Ironsides,’ the three-mast, wooden
Fear of Capsizing
Imagine what the ‘Shrink’ would say when he saw the capsized boats in my acrylic paintings: “So Mister Elam, after you quit racing sailboat dinghies you painted two pictures of capsized sailboats. Do you sometimes dream about a sailboat turning over?” Of course not. My dinghy crew and I always wore a life jacket. Not afraid of capsizing, but just good practice. The acrylic painting above is the right side of the painting entitled “Over
Eight Bells
‘Eight Bells’ identifies obituaries in an email newsletter for sailboat racers called Scuttlebutt. October 2020 the bell rang for Dick Tillman, a national champion who was a one-year, temporary member of the Abilene Snipe sailboat fleet. When we met Dick he was a Naval Academy graduate, an Air Force Lieutenant stationed in College Station, Texas. Dyess Air Force base outside our city afforded him a commissary where he could shop. He and his wife, a
What’s Your Handle?
The Knox, Indiana Wifi lines were being repaired, so my morning email didn’t ‘send’ until 10:21 p.m. I thought about the old days and CBs. I remembered a 1976 summer drive from Texas to North Carolina. Of course, we were trailing a sailboat. This time an 18-foot Flying Scot, headed for the North-American championships. Daughter Michaela and I were along to drive the van at 3 a.m.–boat’s weigh-in deadline that day–while son Kelson and his