‘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 most gracious and charming couple, drove to Abilene and Dick asked to pay his annual dues so he could join our fledgling fleet of seven skippers. Later years Dick became Commodore of Snipe International Sailing Association.
The association journal told us that Dick had won the Snipe National Championships the year before. Welcome. Abilene became the fleet of a champion. But the champ never sailed with us on our muddy Fort Phantom Hill Lake.
Eight years passed before we ever raced against Dick. Happened at Oklahoma City Boat Club on Lake Hefner. Memorable because the city had experimented with a chemical poured atop the water to reduce evaporation caused by sun, wind and wave action. But not reduce oxygen for fish.
We trailed our 15-foot Snipe from Austin to the regatta. After two races we were not contenders. Dick Tillman was probably going to win another trophy to go with national championships in the Finn, Laser, Sunfish classes and add credentials to his four books on sailboat racing.
No waves, no help for sailboat skippers who watch to determine wind force and direction. But Daughter Sheryl and I got advance warning when two sailboats in front of us nearly capsized and collided on the calmed waters.
We steered around the two entangled Snipes, advanced from sixth to third place, and headed for the finish line. The wind calmed, our dangling ribbons tied to the rigging told us, and we drifted toward the middle of the finish line.
Dick and crew were stalled at the starboard end of the finish line. Louis Nelms and wife from Fort Worth were barely moving at the port end. Our sloop was advancing toward the middle of the finish line from a slight wind we couldn’t see. We didn’t stir. Sheryl sat in the cockpit floor. I crouched over the tiller.
We crossed first. Didn’t win a trophy. But will never forget the last sail with Champion Dick Tillman. Good sailing up there, Skipper.
Photo credit: International Laser Class Association
