On Being a Winner!

Ever since I first touched a real-life Hobie 14 in December 1972, i've had this long standing passion for sailing.

So much so, that in March 1975 I was able to buy my own dinghy, a very battered and neglected Dabchick, and then re-vamp it, so that it could be sailed. Along the way I learnt much about boats, sailing, and myself.

By 1977, I wasn't spending much time sailing my own boat, as I was involved in school rugby, and sailing Mosquito catamarans. At that stage I had progressed to a Sprog, and my folks had bought a Tack, which later made way for an Extra. By the end of 1977, a career in sailing seemed a good idea to me. The only problem with that is that back then professional sailing was, as now, in South Africa, not really a good career move.

I had the technical building skills, and although I am NOT a natural sailor, I worked hard at it, and in my opinion, I was pretty good.

The years progressed, I didn't go near a sailing dinghy for a long time. For a short while I did have a little dinghy, but sold it just before moving to Bloemfontein. Just before moving to Bloem I acquired a Marblehead radio controlled model racing yacht, to the 247 design.

In Bloem was a very active radio controlled model racing yacht club, and I joined up with them. Club politics, and members moving away pretty much killed the club, and I contributed to the near extinction by becoming unemployed. At the time I had been playing around with a very crude IOM class yacht, which was not well received at the club.

Ten years, and a lot of lonely sailing later, I reconnected with Shaun Carroll, who had started sailing again, and slowly but surely, together with Kobus de Beer and Marcelle Keyser we got the club going again.

For a very minor sport we showed good growth, and it was eventually not unusual to have ten or eleven boats on the water.

And here is where I tie in with the title to this post.

Although I sailed reasonably well at club level, I would come apart at any other level, generally being the guy who made sure that nobody would have to embarrass themself by admitting to have come last.

Did this bug me? No. I enjoyed the competition, getting new members, the promotion of the sport, and yes, even sailing my heart out, just to come last.

Winning is not everything. I know winners who were miserable about their performance. Winning is having that good feel, just because you were there!

I'm sailing RSA79, at the Free State Provincial Champs in 2005.