Micki McNaughton, our Secretary and keeper of our archives, has been looking at our history and finding things worth reprinting. This article is too long for one S-t-S and so will be continued next month. Or read it all on line. Spelling is as it was in the original and in the spirit of seamen of old.

HISTORY OF SOUTH SOUND SAILING SOCIETY AS GIVEN BY TED BRIEN MARCH 9, 1976

Once upon a time: Six or seven boats met at the Olympia Shoal. Someone called out, “Last on around the reserve fleet is an old oil derrick.” Off they went! One fouled on the anchor of a liberty ship; one ran headlong into a baby flat top he said he hadn’t noticed; the reserve fleet patrol yelled at them, took their names, and told them never to come back; on the way in two went aground on the spoils bank; one man went over board. When they were safely tied up at their slips all agreed it had been a great afternoon and that they should do that every weekend—so began South Sound Sailing Society.

This was all BC—Before Commodores. Nineteen hundred and seventy was the Summer Series by Consensus. The course was the Coon Cove Log Raft or the Shoal—red can, by the club, ten-second light (you could always see pieces of wail hanging there), back to the Shoal. Boats were seen leaning into the Shoal, thus snagging themselves on it. The start was by a horn. If Leader, Sargent, kept going you did two laps. Boat skippers kept their own times. They were posted on a small board (three of them) located at Chadwicks, West Bay, and Olympia Yacht Club. Howard Bullpitt would make the rounds and collect the times. Then he would apply a mysterious handicap officially explained away as "a variation of the Portsmouth numbering system." Howard said that due to a consistent problem of "slow clocks" on board each vessel, he had to make many phone calls after the race to verify the order of finish and then he would apply this mysterious handicap to everyone’s results to coincide with the order of finish and to cover the revisions in times.

If you left a stamped, self-addressed envelope with Howard you received a copy of the race results. Then everone got on the phones to see why that great time they had turned in didn’t win.

Obviously, it could not go on like this forever. In the autum of 1970 a voice from the wilderness spoke out and a Dick Moe, a back-of-the-pack racer with a 22 foot Santana named Tardy Troll, announced that there would be a Christmas party at Gerry Carlstrom’s house )another back-of-the-pack racer unknown with just a 21-foot Santana). You could see a pecking order developing here. He then turned to Gerry and asked, "you do have a house don’t you, Gerry?" Well, Gerry was game. He was assured that there would only be about 15 boats represented. Actually, over 100 people showed up although this is misleading as to the size of the club then because some have never been seen since. It was standing room only. They took the furniture out of the basement to get as many people out of the upstairs because the joists were starting to crack. All evening the debate raged. It was the free spirits versus the constitutionalists. Some liked the club the way it was--others wanted to organize. The controversy continued on. Actually, it wasn’t until Carlstrom’s booze gave out that a vote was taken. The organizers won out.

So the party ended. But the debate continued in the field. One day Dick Moe lost his forestay to George Hansen’s anchor. Twice Chuck Barbo was found hanging by his spreaders at the Country Club Dolphin. Feelings were running high. Early in 1971 a more formal meeting was held at JackandRandy’s, a local eatery and wine hall. Because he was free, we used the legal service Frank Thorp. A Board of Directors was selected to draw up a constitution which, by the way, has the rare quality, unlike many nautical clubs, of not differenciating between skippers and non-boat owners. South Sound makes no stipulation about this in its constitution. Well, this made everyone happy. In the elation of the moment, someone, probably Carlstrom, asked who had started that crazy Christmas party. Everyone blamed Dick Moe; and, sure enough, Dick Moe got credit for the party, for Carlstrom’s booze, for the cracked floor joists, and was promptly elected commodore. It seemed the least we could do after he had lost his forestay. No sooner was he elected than he sold his Santana 22 and showed up in a 30 foot Newport which had to make you wonder what Thorp had put into that constitution.

My first encounter with the SJopsrit was memorable. It had a hugh lapper that ran clear behind the helm. It looked like a giant diaper on a stick. I had the right of way on him one day from down wind, but there wasn’t a soul insight on what looked loke a ghost ship. At the last moment a face and a hand with a drink appeared from one of the folds—indecision was obvious. A face would appear then disappear, then another would appear and disappear. Suddenly the boat literally spun in place and like a great revolving stage revealed the scene on the far side of the solid white wall. Eight or ten people were being thrown about, upside down, highballs and beer spilled on the shirt fronts and eachother. Complete bedlam prevailed, and as their stern swung by heading back the way they had come, I heard Moe say, "I still think we could have made it."

The year 1971 passed with two or three meetings during the year and an experiment called the Toliva Shoal Race. It was done to prove that man could circumnavigate Anderson Island with or without the aid of Balch Passage and survive. Don Davidson showed it could b e done by drifting in with the tide at 6 a.m. and another tradition was born!!

Along in here a contest was held for a pennant for the Society. There were 17 designs submitted with four S’s lined up, nine with 4 sea horses in a row, six with 4 sails and one with a naked mermaid with a Chesapeake Bay cat boat tattooed on her chest. As a result of the first ballot, the mermaid and our eventual selection tied. After the usual debate, the mermaid was withdrawn on a morals count and we had our present pennant.

The year 1972 brought a change of pace for the Commodore’s chair. That was the year that a 30 foot Rossen named the 4 D’s came into our lives. It was Dwaine Matchette’s and carried an incredible handicap estimated at 7.9 on the Richter Scale. It seemed our new Commodore was no sooner installed than he showed up in a 36 foot Columbia renamed the Seaclusion. Once again we rushed to re-read that constitution. The Board’s concerns were quickly subdued, however, when in a secret hearing, Dwaine assured them that he had practically stolen that boat from Harold Sargent.

In what many thought was a truly magnanimous sporting gesture allegedly done to allay the fears of the slowest of his fellow racers, Dwaine loaded up his new vessel with the usual flock of friends and well wishers, headed out for the Sunday race to Coon Cove Log Raft and back. However, just as the race started, the Seaclusion snagged on the Olympia Shoal and laid on its beams ends high and dry. There they stayed all afternoon watching for the fleet and the tide to return. As you may know, Dwaine’s binocular-equipped neighbors are only a few hundred feet away. Also, of course, in the prone position the marine head did not work. Needless to say, as the beer and the day wore on, social pressures were strained to the breaking point. Undaunted, our Commodore managed to right his vessel before filling—a nautical term—and nonchalauntly crossed the finish line along with the returning fleet, many of whom had not even missed him.

The year 1973 found the society in the surgeon-like hands of one Don Davidson, with his Hyda, the Annie Pie. This was known as the year of meetings in the upstairs room at the Olympia Federal Savings and Loan where we were always 15 chairs short and of Bill Amos, who was famous for being first in war and last in peace. Bill and Don worked up a newsletter and ran it off on the school ditto machine. The first copies off the press were clear and sharp, but as the run proceeded the ink became lighter and harder to read, and by the time they finished, the last copies were an unreadable blur. For that entire year those at the end of the alphabet after Siebolt or Thorsen never really knew what Davidson and the Society were doing! Once again the luck of the office held and Don was able to move up into a Yankee 30. Everyone wondered when he named it the Beagle until after his second race when the word got out. The Beagle could only tack to starboard. Incredible—the boat would not move to port, condemned to a lifetime of being on a port tack. Not so cried Don and one windy day in March he proceeded to demonstrate a classic series of spinnaker knockdowns, first to starboard and then—sure enough—to port. But the gossip continued and finally a close on-the-dock exam revealed that the keel was indeed warped. That same marine survey showed that the holding tank aboard the Beagle apparently had no intention of ever letting anything out. It was literally a holding tank. It still contained everything that had ever gone into it. Probably that was why Don always smoked a pipe. To recap 1973, we had standing-room only meetings, a fading newsletter and for a Commodore, we had an orthodontist who couldn’t even straighten his own keel.

The year 1974 was the year of the Hitchman. A wild year it was. It has been said that everyone saw so much of the stern of the Torea that they elected him Commodore to put him up where they could see his face. Yet, John was not born the flawless sailor that we all know. I remember the first time I really took notice of the Torea. We were all moored together in the mud at Chadwicks. John had two young lads on the foredeck as he motored clear of the little marina. The wind was southwest at 20 to 25 MPH. There were three log ships tied up and ol’ Fred Chadwick and I were standing at the outer end of the Standard Oil dock watching John get under way. As John turned and headed downwind, the very first sail to go up was a very colorful and large spinnaker. Lord knows why, but the lads on the bow pulled the chute up and it jammed there. Before you knew it, the Torea was headed for the port dock, suffering a near knockdown every few seconds. Fred Chadwick stood there straddling his bicycle, watching this wild scene proceeding toward apparent destruction between the port pilings and in his slow, easy way he said, "Kinda looks like he’s going to take that Jap on the inside." At the last possible moment, John let go of the outboard motor handle and grabbed the boat’s tiller and just veered away in time to miss the first freighter. He blew down the length of that ship only to disappear around the bow end in a gust headed for the next ship. A few breathless moments later he reappeared just in time to clear the second ship, skimmed along that one and once again disappeared at the far end of it. About this time Fred slowly wheeled his bike around and said, "I gotta get back to work—let me know how this turns out."

Well, of course, we all know how it turned out—John went on to miss the last ship, to recover control of his spinnaker and become one of the greatest drifters in South Sound’s history! During his term the newsletter, under Pebby Byrd, became again legible, the meetings doubled to six a year, and dues doubled to $10 a year, and the membership of the Society exploded…it doubled, too. In fact, there’s o telling where John’t term would have topped out if the West Bay Marina hadn’t landed on him.

During 1975 those in the Society who had any political knowhow were watching a young man named Barbo who was posing as Hitchman’s race committee chairman during 1974. This guy set up one of the toughest fall and winter race schedules ever endured by the members—and then went skiing that year. With that kind of management ability it was no wonder Chuck Barbo was to be our next Commodore. This is the same ma who parlied a 25-foot Coronado (Sea Turkey?) into a sleek racing machine from up North—The Houligan. Remember your first impressions of the Weatherly last month? That was the same effect the Houligan had on the South Sounders that first month. Chuck automatically took first place. No contest. The Barbo myth was unbeatable. Then, just when things were going his way, whiskey was his undoing—not too much, too little. Always before we had met at the Bank of the Community Center and had gathered at nearby pubs afterward for a few suds. Barbo figured if we went to the Country Club we could have the meeting and refreshments at the same time. Well, something went wrong—we still don’t know what happened. The bar at the Club never did open and Washington Natural Gas didn’t even have an H License. Those times are still knows as Barbo Dry Gulch Days. It makes me parched just to think of it.

This brings us up to 1976. The history will have to be continued after Carlstom’s Commodoreship ends.