Cobaltchat.com

bruceb58 wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 3:16 pm I still miss the old races with plain mono-hulls. Dennis Conner days. Was the best skipper back then and not the highest tech boat.

I agree. I use to stay up late at night (in the fraternity house) watching those races.

When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale in the 80's, I used to keep up with the Whitbread race. I think that was the name...might have changed by now as that might have been the corporate sponsor's name. That was where they raced around the world in several legs in a timed race. I think they would stay in Ft. Lauderdale several days. Racing in Dennis Conner days was very interesting. I've only sailed a Hobe Cat once, but thought it was great. Our marina is at the largest open area on GFL, so we see lots of sailboats, especially in the Fall when the surf boats have pretty much shut down for the year.

bruceb58 wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 3:16 pm I still miss the old races with plain mono-hulls. Dennis Conner days. Was the best skipper back then and not the highest tech boat.

So, on a side note while in Hawaii several years back we went to a Luau and are randomly seated with a couple at our table--the gentleman is super laid back, but you can tell a man of means. The guy's name is Ernest and I don't remember the wifes name--we are laughing and drinking cheap booze from plastic cups and we got on the subject of sailing and his wife keeps telling him "you've got to tell them about your boat"...she keeps going on and on--but the guy is super humble and won't really say anything. Well, finally, she pushes him into talking so he says, "I bought an old 12 meter" and tries to leave it at that.. The wife with several drinks in her keeps pushing and says....yeah---an old 12 meter. Well, long story short, he finally gives up the story. He bought Freedom from the Dennis Connor days when he defended the America's cup in Perth. It was somewhere in Europe in a marina where someone had converted it to a form of live-aboard. Well, as the story unfolds, he bought it and he and his daughter restored it.. I thought it was BS until I googled it and sure enough, there are several articles about it.

I ended up googling the whole story and it checked out. Oh and by the way, the gentleman's company was worth $2.4B 10 years ago...so in addition to the cool story, I got to have dinner with a billionaire. I sent him a Linked in request---still waiting for him to accept--LOL

Great story Sailor. One of the reasons I enjoy chatting it up with strangers.