A Little Surprise ...

by Pam

So, about two and half weeks ago, Doug traveled down to the annual season ending Wurstfest Centerboard Regatta.  Lake Canyon Yacht Club has this launching ramp that is rather hard to forget.  It has a reputation.  It’s infamous.  Just ask a J/24 sailor from District 14 or click on the picture below and go to the Texas J/24 website and see how to launch a J/24 by pushing it down a ramp.  Just the thought of it makes me think about fingernails on a chalkboard.

It’s been an off sailing year for me, so Doug headed down to Lake Canyon, alone, with my car … my favorite car ever, our tandem trailer, my dolly and his good Aussie Laser.  Headed down to LCYC to launch on that infamous ramp.  What could go wrong, right?  I always worry when it comes to Doug.  He has one of a kind experiences … often!  But, he’s also just so dang lucky.  

I get a call on Saturday afternoon and he tells me how the sailing is going, who he’s run into, who says 'hi,' and all about the weather, the competition and the lake level.  No news is good news, right?  That would be wrong. 

Sunday, I was up a ladder most of the day taping and bedding and before I knew it, the day was gone and Doug should have called already to say he’s won the regatta and is on his way home … but he hadn’t called. 

So, I ring him up and he breaks the news that he didn’t win.  He finished 4^th. The combined ages of the top 3 sailors were still more than 17 years younger than Doug which he sees as a good sign for the class, as well as for him being able to keep up.  

He tells me he’s been on the road for a couple of hours and proceeded to talk about all sorts of things for almost 15 minutes and then says something along the lines of, “listen I had a little surprise that I need to tell you about … you know how that ramp is really steep?”  My heart sank and I reluctantly asked, “What happened to the trailer?” and he says, “It wasn’t the trailer.” I cringed and continued, “What happened to the car?” He continued to stall “It wasn’t the car.” Phew! “The dolly?” “It wasn’t the dolly?”  Oh no!  “Your boat?”  He says, ”Well, I was really tired and had only made it halfway up the hill and someone came to help and the boat sort of slipped off the dolly, landed on the concrete and started slowly sliding down the ramp.”  Holy crap!

As I continued to drag information out of him, I learned that this happened on Saturday and bunches of people sprang into action to catch the boat and stopped it from sliding much more than 10 feet and he had already detoured to Austin on his way home to drop off the boat for Fred Schroth to fix.  Thankfully, Fred was at the regatta.  Doug wouldn’t even look at the bottom until after racing on Sunday and Fred was able to quickly assess the damage and give him a really reasonable quote for the repair.  I’ve seen Fred’s work.  It’s good.  It’s solid and he makes it even better than the original.  Everything was going to be okay.

Two and a half weeks later, the boat is repaired, back home, and the entire bottom polished out better than new.  Thank you Fred!  Yep.  Doug has unique experiences and he gets lucky. Just don't be standing next to him outside during a lightening storm.  He's going to be fine but will definitely have a tale to tell.

I told Doug that next time he wants a bottom job on his boat that he could simply ask instead of tossing the boat on the ramp and giving it a good shove.

Whoever that fella was that was looking to match the gelcoat on his Aussie Laser, give Fred a call.  It was perfect!