Yacht Racing Quotes

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slip-over jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

I have never accepted the notion that you keep a Cadillac or a yacht or anything at all, except perhaps for convenience. I have always had a quarrel with this country not only about race but about the standards by which it appears to live. People are drowning in things. They don’t even know what they want them for. They are actually useless. You can’t sleep with a yacht. You can’t make love to a Cadillac, though everyone appears to be trying to… I think the great emotional or psychological or effective lack of love and touching is the key to the American or even the Western disease.

Occasionally he’d get a letter like the one in 1947 from the silly attorney in Ohio, chastising him for his parsimonious treatment of his Negro valet, Rochester, and threatening to sue on Rochester’s behalf. But as Cleveland Amory pointed out in the Saturday Evening Post, the real Rochester wasn’t complaining: he “has never been anybody’s valet, has a block-large estate and three servants of his own, drives an expensive car and a big station wagon, and, when not working—which he does two days a week for some $700 per air-time minute—spends his leisure hours either yachting or supervising his well-stocked racing stable.

A buzzing comes across the sky. The red biplane rolls inward across the turquoise water, over a wispy pine isle with a scattering of sailboats close by. Fishing boats make froth lines as they enter the channel below. A windjammer heads out for a sunset cruise promising a marmalade sky. The buzz hardens and bursts into an immense whirling sound above the yachts and sport fishers at the marina docks—the plane now racing its elongated shadow over the waterfront restaurants and bars. A man on bicycle coming round by the schooner wharf looks up with the whoosh of the plane already over the tall palms and roof tin, disappearing now in a muted drone down toward the Southernmost.” From Chapter 1: An Unfinished Sunset

wealthy Georgian named Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar, who bought the Wanderer, a luxury yacht, in New York and outfitted her for slaving. Around the time Meaher made his bet, Lamar was being lionized as a hero in newspapers across the nation as tales of the Africans he smuggled into the country spread. Relying on family money to make his start, Lamar was involved in horse racing, gold mining, road building, and the shipping of cotton. However, it appears he was not particularly good at any of those endeavors, and was repeatedly bailed out of financial disasters by his father, Gazaway. A family history going back three hundred years contains a small mention of Charles, describing him as “a dangerous man, and with all his apparent recklessness and lawlessness, a cautious man, too.” Perhaps not too cautious, as he was known to often resort to violence. While serving as an alderman on the Savannah City Council in 1853, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct and fighting in the streets.” In 1858, he shot out a friend’s eye while attempting to defend his uncle in a fight. Ultimately, he was the last person killed in the Civil War, in a small battle fought in Columbus, Georgia, seven days after the surrender at Appomattox.

was running out of valuable athletic clichés. Would beach volleyball say much about proposals for federal health care reform? Could I use mumblety-peg comparisons to explain the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations? Golf, however, is ideal for these purposes. “Christian fundamentalists put a wicked slice in the Republican party platform.” “Somebody should replace the divot on the back of Al Gore’s head.” “Let’s go hit Congress with a stick.” I also wanted a sport with a lot of equipment. All truly American sports are equipment intensive. Basketball was strictly for hoop-over-the-barn-door Hoosiers and Jersey City Y’s until two-hundred-dollar gym shoes were invented. And synchronized swimming will never make it to network prime time because how often do you need new nose plugs? I’m an altruistic guy, in my own Reaganomics way. Sports gear purchases are about all that’s keeping the fragile U.S. economy alive, and you’d have to get into America’s Cup yachting or cross-country airplane racing to find a sport that needs more gear than golf. I’ve bought the shoes, hats, socks, pants, shirts, umbrellas, windbreakers, and plus fours—all in colors that Nirvana fans wouldn’t dye their hair. Then there are the drivers, irons, putters, and the special clubs: parking-lot wedge, back-of-the-tree mashie, nearby highway niblick. MasterCard has installed a plaque on the wall of its headquarters to commemorate my taking up golf.

Vibram FiveFingers,” Ted said. “Aren’t they great? I’m their first sponsored athlete!” Yes, it was true; Ted had become America’s first professional barefoot runner of the modern era. FiveFingers were designed as a deck shoe for yacht racers; the idea was to give better grip on slippery surfaces while maintaining the feeling of shoelessness. You had to look closely just to spot them; they conformed so perfectly around his soles and each toe, it looked as if Ted had dipped the bottoms of his feet in greenish ink.

Jean-Marc watched the sand-yachts, and when he saw one heading at racing-car speed for Chantal, he frowned. An old man lay in the thing like an astro­naut in a rocket. Flat on his back like that, the man can’t see anything ahead of him! Is Chantal vigilant enough to keep clear? He railed against her, against her overly offhand nature, and quickened his pace. She turned half-way around. But she cannot have seen Jean-Marc, for her demeanour was still slow, the demeanour of a woman deep in thought and walking without looking about her. He would like to shout to her to stop being so distracted, to pay attention to those idiotic vehicles running all over the beach. Suddenly he imagines her body crushed by the sand-yacht, sprawled on the sand, she is bleeding, the sand-yacht is disappearing down the beach and he sees himself dash towards her. He is so upset by the image that he really does start shouting Chantal’s name; the wind is strong, the beach enormous, and no one can hear his voice, so he can give over to that sort of sentimental theatrics and, with tears in his eyes, shout out his anguish for her; his face clenched in a grimace of weeping, for a few seconds he is living through the horror of her death. Then, himself astounded by that curious spasm of hysteria, he saw her, in the distance, still strolling nonchalantly, peaceable, calm, pretty, infinitely touch­ing, and he grinned at the comedy of bereavement he’d just played out, smiled about it without self-reproach, because Chantal’s death has been with him ever since he began to love her.

The Vendee is more than a yacht race to the French. To them the Vendee flies the flag for the human spirit. It is a demonstration that life is about more than being pigeonholed.

Oh, ye're always pitchin' into some wan," said Mr. Hennessy. "I bet ye Willum Jennings Bryan niver see th' platform befure it wint in. He's too good a man." "He is all iv that," said Mr. Dooley. "But ye bet he knows th' rale platform f'r him is: 'Look at th' bad breaks Mack's made,' an' Mack's platform is: 'Ye'd get worse if ye had Billy Bryan.' An' it depinds on whether most iv th' voters ar-re tired out or on'y a little tired who's ilicted. All excipt you, Hinnissy. Ye'll vote f'r Bryan?" "I will," said Mr. Hennessy. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "d'ye know, I suspicted ye might." THE YACHT RACES

Orderly markets, like horse races, exist on differences of opinion.

Every maxi-yacht owner is rich. What set Sayonara apart from its peers was the quality of the crew, the way its members had learned to work together, and Ellison’s ability to retain them race after race. To some extent it was self-perpetuating: everyone likes being on the winning team. But the real key to Sayonara’s success lay in the degree to which its crewmen specialized in their jobs. On many boats, decisions about tactics and the trim of a sail are second-guessed as a matter of course. Second-guessing on Sayonara was unusual. Ellison had come to appreciate the skill of his crew, and he rarely overruled them.