Neil McConaghy was born In Tacoma on April 24th. 1949 and died at home on Day Island on February 2nd, 2007, surrounded by family and friends. He was a Tacoma native, yacht broker and Star sailor, with whom I spent many hours drifting around the Toliva Shoals course and many other South Sound Races over the years. Perhaps you can post this for those who knew him. I don’t know if he ever was a member of South Sound, though he certainly was a part of our racing.
Many of the old timers will know him as a competitor from some of the boats that he raced on at different times. 1970’s: Stars, Rival a Cal 40 winning the Tacoma Cup, Six meters, Polly Adler a Newport 27 a South Sound and& Tacoma Fleet Champion, Flaunt 3 OA Swiftsure Juan de Fuca Race, Chaos a Ranger 37. 1980’s: Whistle Wing V, a Peterson 50 donated to the Boy Scouts and campaigned by Neil and Peter Stanley locally, San Francisco Big Boat Series and Southern Cal to Mexico Races, Flexible Flyer a Star, J-29 Doby late 1980’s early 1990’s. 1990’s: a few Olson 30s, Avalanche Lily an Express 37, and most recently the J-35 Renegade which was just listed #10 on the 48 North Top 25. I’m sure I missed some of the boats he sailed.
His brokerage was Neil McConaghy and Associates. As a broker Neil seemed to have this ability to sell a boat, motivate the buyer to race it and then make himself available to skipper the boat. Thus his name might not be listed as the official owner/skipper, but the boats listed below were always under his leadership when he was onboard.
He was truly a gentlemen sailor in the 30 years that I knew him. I can’t ever remember him purposely tacking on someone. A true Star Sailor at heart he was instrumental in the formation of the Tacoma Star Fleet back in the ’70’s, raced internationally at a competitive level and wasn’t too far off the pace with guys by the name of Buchan, Connors, Blackhaller, and Melges to name a few. His Star boats were named Flexible Flyer so that he could have the fastest sled on the block.
He was the best all around sailor I ever sailed with, though he seemed to escape the podium at times when he really deserved it. Probably the most memorable time in the mid 80’s, during the Straits of Georgia Race, he skippered Whistle Wing V . The boat broke away from the pack and was literally miles ahead of the nearest competitor. During the night an error occurred on the Loran Navigation System and the boat sailed past the mark surfing down 15-20 foot waves, otherwise records would have been broken.
As a Star sailor he motivated others to reach another level. When most, including myself, bought their first boat they would have been content on just day sailing. Neil had this infectious passion for racing that soon spread to anyone around him. He motivated others by example, participating not only locally, but throughout the Northwest and even internationally. Bill Brosius can attest to this, he was there as well. In fact, these two people were instrumental in helping me out on the race course first. Bill as always made sure our boats had the hardware necessary to sail safely; nothing has changed. Neil would always find another boat, a deal I couldn’t refuse, to step up to another level.
I sailed with Neil firsthand on the PHRF boats as crew during the late 1970’s and through the early 1990’s and as a competitor with the Stars. Neil’s excellent boat handling skills never made me feel uneasy when out in a good breeze. We had good times on his boats. In the South Sound we sailed without instruments other than a compass, used a laminated chart of the South Sound you would see in a restaurant with the notice at the bottom “not for navigation purposes”, short tacked the beach with the old bump and go tactics and learned how to use the spinnaker pole to shove off the beach to get back in the race.
Neil took people with no experience and taught them how to sail on his boats. In fact, had it not been for Neil I probably wouldn’t have experienced the wide range of sailing. He gave me many great opportunities. He taught me allot about detail in sail trim, and in some ways we learned along with him as well. In the 1970’s he bought Polly Adler and then proceeded to add 6’ to the mast. A boat that didn’t seem to take much of a penalty with the added sail area. However, our penalty was flying the spinnaker in heavy air: broaching became a ritual. I can’t tell how many times I sat in a cockpit full of water looking up at Neil as we fought to regain control. Finally after a couple of seasons, we used a boring white #3 as our spinnaker and never really lost position in the races, but were able to eat dinner.
While he was very competitive, he spent just as much time cruising up north on various powerboats his family owned. He had fun first and loved just being on the water. It was over heard one time that he slept in during the work week, but come Saturday morning he was up at the crack of dawn to go out on the boat. A true Northwest Sailor inside and out.
Derek DeCouteau, Star 6085