The U.S. Nationals: Unfortunately, this year's winners of The Designer's Trophy (top US finisher [4th] in the Nationals), Richard Johnson and his wife, Michele, had to start their long drive back to Charlotte, NC before the ceremony where Richard had a flight to catch at 0630 the next morning. Commodore Heffernan (above) displayed the trophy on behalf of Richard and Michele who sailed an excellent series. Also sailing a fine series - 3rd overall - but having to leave early to start their long slog back to Montreal, were defending Midwinters champions, Peter Rahn and his son, Alex.

USWA Racing Captain, Nick Seraphinoff, had some special prizes for the second-place crew: flash cards with handles that will facilitate the oh so important communications between crew and helm. Here, Nick demonstrates the card the crew might flash to his helm after a great start, a card that can be turned around quickly in the event that ...

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"I'm doin' it, I'm doin' it!" The perfect crew response to a helm who is urging his crew to speed things up. This famous line was once uttered by Fantastic Freddie Schueddekopp, a former crew of Uncle Al's who was a great crew but at times a bit slow and methodical. In this instance, we were sailing a mixed fleet of about 50 Fireballs and 470's on Ford Lake outside of Detroit in the early 70's. Freddie and I had gotten a great start at the extremely favoured pin end in light-to-medium airs. The problem was that we were already able to lay the windward mark on port tack and so every second that we stayed on starboard was a second wasted. But it would be touch and go if we tacked, whether or not we could cross the first starboard boat behind us. And if we missed crossing him, we could look forward to taking 48 more transoms - an unappealing prospect. So, I warned Freddie that we were about to tack on the count of three, and that if ever he did the perfect job of getting the Fireball's little jib in and filled on the new tack, this would be the time!! Well, at the count of three, I whipped the boat around, got the main re-cleated, and to my horror, saw the jib flogging its little heart out. "Get the f*cking jib in!" I shrieked.

... To which Freddie responded in slow, measured and somewhat aggrieved tones, with those words immortalized on the card Nick is holding above. We did cross the starboard boat without fouling, by the way. If you check the past winners of the U.S. Nationals page and look under 1976, you can see Freddie's name on both the list and on the Designer's Trophy which in those days was still available to non-US helms.

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