Story: 098 – Awards, Trophies, and Flags Teller: Bob, Jim Toups Awards, Trophies, and Flags Bits and pieces of this story are to be found elsewhere in this magnificent collection of Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club lure. We are fond of recognizing achievement through the vehicle of an artifact; let me bring up some of them in this story. One such object, the infamous Doufuss, has its own story, so no repetition here. The first tale in this story is the Golden Mermaid. It was the creation of James “Bungee Jim” Toups, so it altogether fits that I use his words (and my own humorous editing) to describe the short history of this award. Turn back the clock, if you will, to the spring of 1985. Bungee Jim is the Cruise Chairman that year. At the May General Meeting, he had an announcement that was a “big deal.” Without going into details, James pro- claimed that there would be an award given annually to that boat and crew that best exemplified the spirit of cruising. Then he sat down. True to his promise, the cruising column in the next Inlet/Outlet “explained” the rules for the award. See if you can make sense of this. The Cruising Chairman will award the famous Golden Mermaid to the cruiser who accu- mulates the most points during the cruising season. OK, so far, so good. There is a “precise” rating system listed herein. You will receive a point for every cruise attended, just like the points for the cruising flags. Now it gets complex. The boat gets one point for every ten nautical miles traveled powered by wind, diesel, or muscle. At the discretion of the committee and subject to be overruled by the chairman, the following modifications are in effect. The skipper can glean up to ten points for seamanship and boating skill. General cruising knowledge, whatever that is, gains the vessel up to ten more points. Even if you have a deficit of sailing skills, you can earn up to ten points by presenting ex- cellent storytelling skills at the raft-up. Points can come from cruising “inventory,” be- lieve it or not. And what is that? If your craft has LORAN, a HAM radio, RDF, VHF ra- dio, roller furling, or even a bowsprit, you get up to ten points. Jim, it must be noted, had Mermaid fender a category called “munchie” points. You can earn same for sharing food and drink with other folks at the raft-up. Bungee Jim added some words of caution. To prevent someone from “buying” the Golden Mermaid, merely purchasing gear, or telling boring stories, Toups added negative points. Here is how you lose points. Do any of the following, and you deplete your score. Run aground, screwup using said cruising inventory, people yawning or falling asleep while spinning your yarns, or drag anchor are all ways to secure demerits. If the rules seem a tad complex, the awarding of the Golden Mermaid was sketchy too. After much debate, Ed & Daisy Marill (Siesta) won in 1985 and earned a statuette of a mermaid sitting on a piling. Jim says a photo taken at Change of Command on March 1, 1986, exists, but he does not have it, and there is no print in either the ION nor the photo albums for that year. In a note to me in May of 2020, Bungee Jim fessed up to the fact that Siesta won for just attending the most cruises. None of the additional criteria mattered. The very first Golden Mermaid was a small boat fender shown in the picture. Gold paint kept with the theme. The mermaid had a length of line tied through a donut-shaped ring at the top of her head. It was after that that we started us- ing an official statue. Bungee Jim tells me he is still looking for the figurine of sainted memory in the junk closet as hope springs eternal. The following year two boats won as it was a tie. Peter & Pat Anderson (Pride) and Stan & Sandy Milam (Sandy Dollar) took home the prize. That last couple took over the cruising chair and promised to continue the Golden Mermaid, but the record does not show it ever happened. Stan kept reporting those in the hunt, but there was no ION report at Change of Command of a 1987 winner. Your humble (maybe not so humble) chronicler believes the award continued into the final years of the 1980s, but no written nor photographic proof exists. So fades the mermaid back into the sea and lives only in the yarns spun by our older members. The cruisers seem to have been terribly jealous of the racers and their “blank” after-race parties because they kept dreaming up prizes for cruising events. Once the Golden Mermaid began to fade, there arose the Pelican like the fabled Phoenix. Before I explain what this award was, I should chronicle the various spellings. There were PELICAN and Peli-can, and finally PeliCAN. This last rendering really best describes the award. When Stan Milan took over the chair, he devised a technique to raise attendance at both cruising events and General Meetings. At the meeting in May 1987, Stan explained this award. For each cruise, you, and your boat, attend a slip of paper gets tossed into the Pelican can. Now you under- stand why the rendering Peli-can best suits the award. The more cruises participated, the more pieces of paper in the Pelican. In old data processing lingo, this is unit-record accounting. At most General Meetings, there is a drawing, and one or more names extracted from the Pelican. The winner announced the winner claims the prize. But wait. What if the “winner” is not in attendance? Too bad! According to the rules, as established by Stan, “you must be present, or you don’t get the present.” The first time the prize was awarded, William Jordan and the S/V Music won an unnamed “gourmet” cruising cooking utensil. The Pelican was not awarded every month, but at every General Meeting, the cruising hosts exclaimed that you should attend the next cruise because that is the way you find your boat “in the can.” The September 1987 meeting produced several winners. First, the members in attendance had to guess the number of paper records that were in the Pelican. Pat Anderson of Pride had the correct answer, 103. Pat Brian, Chateau Lafite, won a HISC sweatshirt, and Bryce Batzer, Bryni, scooped up a grill lighter and a bag of charcoal. Three Pelican names came out of the can in February 1988. Bob and Alice McMullin headed Cruise for the next Commodore Year. They promised to keep the Pelican tradition alive, and so they did. The April drawing had a little twist to it. The first name out of the can was Commodore Bill Romberger; he declined the gift. Not to be outdone, the Cruise Chair’s name was next se- lected. The membership cried “foul,” so Bob also took a pass. At long last, we found a legitimate winner, Gordon & Jane Grove, from the S/V Frolic. By the summer of 1989, the new Cruise Chairs had talked HISC member Phil Kniskern, Cahoots, owner of Kniskern Marine, into a few valuable gifts to go along with some of the low-cost prizes. Five times a hand went into the Pelican, and five times the winners stepped forward. The winning name’s slip does not go back in the can, but it is unclear to me if someone goes into the Pelican and removes all of the winning boat’s rec- ords. All of the losing records stay in the can for the whole Commodore Year. Note, if you will, that the Doufuss was beginning to gain more interest. In October of 1989, a record dozen winners claimed prizes that placed some financial strain on Kniskern Ma- rine. In like form, the goodie-bag overflowed with loot for the Pelican winners. Bungee Jim returned to the helm of Cruise. He promised that the September General Meeting would have a Pelican prize worth $150.00. That turned out to be a cash award of $150.00! John Snyder, SeaShell, pocketed the loot, and with it, the Peli- can joined the Golden Mermaid as awards of sainted memory. That does not mean that members gain no re- wards for their efforts. There are still the cruising flags, as documented below. Every boat that hosts a cruise gets a valuable present at Change of Command. 2019 offered an insulated backpack that was a gem of a pre- mium. There is but one award in the by-laws of the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club. There is a committee, called the Sportsmanship Committee, whose sole purpose is to bestow this honor. The Sportsmanship Committee shall promote sportsmanship and sportsmanlike conduct on and off the racecourse. The by-laws state that when ap- propriate, the committee may nominate a HISC member as the Sportsman of the Year and forward such nomi- nation to USSA (now known as US Sailing) each year in conjunction with their Sportsmanship Program. When awarded, the recipient collects this honor at Change of Command. Well, my friends, that is the way it should work. Your editor has looked through every ION since 1979, and do you think he could come up with one mention of this award? He could not! I will venture a guess as to why this is the case. First, not every year has an award winner. Second, Change of Command is such a big deal that all of the glory falls on the Commodore, the flag officers, and the committee chairs. Third, and this may be important, the dinner/dance falls on the last Satur- day in February. The March ION is “on the street.” If the winner were to appear in print, it would be in the April edition. That copy is full of pictures and worse, the primary story is always the Circle Raft-Up. The Sportsman of the Year might have been down the rabbit hole. However, I am not the sort of historian who goes down without a fight. I sent out a mass e-mail “blast” to our membership. And what do you think happened? I got some stories. Past Commodore Tom Garvey reported that he & Anita were buddy-sailing Aloha, with Norm DuPont single handling his boat, Rosebud. The vessels were at anchor in the middle of the night when a scream of pain came from Rosebud. Norm, all alone, was having a kidney stone attack. Quick thinking Tom bolted for the radio and called the Coast Guard in Miami. Into the dinghy to aid Norm. With the help of a flare gun to light up the sky, the cutter found them and shipped Norm to the hospital. Except for an article in the September 1996 ION, Tom gave the incident no fur- ther thought. That was until the Change of Command dinner, March 8, 1997, when the Garveys received the Sportsmanship award. Jamie & Cindy Cowan earned one together in 2019. Cindy won all by herself in 2016. That honor was for the years of hard work doing race results and pur- chasing trophies for the years 1997 – 2015. Paul Chasse remembered that an early 2000s Sportsmanship honor went to Ken Scott. Mike & Brenda Duvall related that the committee awarded his boat Magic. Also, in the 2000s-time frame, they participated in the Columbus Day Regatta. As you, no doubt, remember from my story on racing, Sailing to Win, the regatta had lost some of its turnout, but it was still attracting about 100 boats. Early on the morning of race day, Magic was heading towards the start- Cindy’s award in 2016 ing line under power. They passed another participant under sail. This boat was not going to make the gun on time. A shout revealed that their engine had cycled its last revolution, and they were still going to try to run the course. Mike, tossed them a line, and 27-foot Magic towed the competi- tor to the starting area. The 1989 Sportsmanship award went to Dan & Joyce Fitzgerald aboard Leprechaun. Before the dredging of the inlet, running that cut could be very dangerous, as explained in Surfing the Inlet. You must be careful when you are returning against an ebb tide. Boats returning from a race had to stand off and allow other sail- boats to run the gauntlet one at a time. That fateful day Dan observed a few successful passages before Jim Durr on I’m Judy – Sail Me get swept up by the current and rollover. Of the five on the boat, two went into the drink. One was quickly fished out by a passing jet ski, but that left the wet crewman, Jim Davis, watching the boat drift away. A cushion attached to a long line found its target when tossed from Leprechaun. They could not pull him aboard, but a jib sheet loop placed in the water under the victim's feet provided a platform. From there, it was a simple turning of the winch, and Jim rode the line like an elevator. A well-documented honor that lives in plain sight is “Honored Commodore, Lifetime Member.” It goes to a Commodore who has given 25 years of service to the Club—first awarded to Bill Nederlanden at the 25th anni- versary of the HISC. As of 2020, there are 17 Commodore’s so honored listed in the Roster. Because it is in the book, it is easy to locate. By the time you read this in 2071, there will be many more commanders so hon- ored. What good would there be to holding a regatta, major race series, or traditional coastal event without silverware for the winners? It just is not done. This section’s focus is racing trophies. There are two types of prizes awarded. The first is the item that the winner can keep forever like silver plates, cups, statues, or in one case, a spinnaker. The spinna- ker story can be found in this collection, with a picture of same, in the yarn called In Key West, In the Money, and In the Pink. The image shows both the small trophies and the perpetual cup described below. The picture, taken at the 2012 Hospice Regatta, shows the trophy table. Note that the awards for being “in the money” are three different sizes. Awards table at Hospice First, second, and third descend in size. Some of the big winners dis- play their trophies in large curio cabinets or mounted on the walls of their home. Others just stash them in boxes seldom seen. The second type of trophy is the perpetual cup. Awarded, in addition to the “take-home” prize, this elaborate item travels home with the winner for one year. Just before the race the following year, the winner must return the silver. If we had a clubhouse, which we don’t and never will have, the perpetual trophy would live at the club. The most prestigious regatta the Club holds is the Nederlanden. Every summer, the HISC organizes this race. Recently the Nederlanden is combined with the Father’s Day cruise. The picture shows Larry Geller taking home the big one at Bahia Mar. As you have undoubtedly noticed, I have gone for “color” in these pages rather than a pure historical telling of HISC history. Nothing could be more colorful than Beer Can racing. This Larry Geller informal activity takes place during the long hours of daylight during the summer months. We did not invent this weekly race. That honor belongs to the Balboa Yacht Club circa 1963. On Wednesday, June 6, 1990, at 7:00 PM, the HISC began the Beer Can tradition. As Commodore Dan Fitzgerald explained, “This gives us all a great reason to use our boats during the week.” For June, July, and August, Wednesday evening meant beer. The tradition, begun by Walt King, was dubbed the “annual quest for the porcelain trophy.” At the September General Meeting, the trophy filled with champagne, we don’t know the brand, but deemed “good, “ slaked the thirst of the winning skipper and crew. Note well the picture of Phil Wallace supporting the holy ritual. Here is one last footnote to the tale of the trophies. In my last conversation with Betty Phil Wallace drinks Nederlanden, she related to me some information about race trophies in the 1970s. HISC had a Founding Member named Walter Stiller. He fashioned trophies made of wood featuring inlaid pictures. Sadly, there are no pictures of these works of art. Now we come to the last segment of our story, flags. What would any naval organization be without them? Since the dawn of water transportation, signal communication depended on flags. Commanders had their pen- nants; sailing organizations borrowed the concept and the name. Flag officer comes from the fact that the of- ficer carries the flag of office to any ship they board. Not only does the Commodore, or any other flag officer, fly the flag of office on their boat, but they can carry it to any other ship that they are on. Note the picture of the 2020 flag officers and their flags. A footnote to this image: As you all know by now, these HISC leaders were running the Club during the challenging year of the Coronavirus pandemic. Commo- dore, Dale Kern, will always be remembered as the great pilot of our vessel. Sailing etiquette and custom dictate how to fly flags. The illus- tration shows how we displayed our flags from the starboard spreader. From top to bottom, they are the HISC burgee, my Dale Kern and the 2020 Flag officers Past Commodore flag, and my owner’s flag. The text below is an explanation of the burgee. At the Change of Command ceremony, the outgoing Commodore gets his flag in recognition of his year of service. The owner’s flag requires a bit of history. When I was a teenager, I designed the own- er’s flag for my father. Every boat I have owned had a flag. When the two couples bought Esprit du Vent, a flag was required. The character 風 Feng in Chinese or Kaze in Japanese is wind, so the French name wind spirit is represented. Over the years, I have made a few dozen owner’s flags for friends. Flying from the starboard spreader is the burgee of the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club. It was not always so. In the 1950s, my father flew the burgee of the Raritan Yacht Club from the main mast of his 39’ yawl, Turia. But, VHF antennas and apparent wind indi- cators now dominate the masthead, so the burgee had to go. It traveled down to the spreader where it remains to this day. From the start, the HISC needed a burgee. In the spring of 1971, the Club had a contest to design it. The winning design came from Dorothy Jenvey. Bart Brownell made arrangements for fabrication in July 1971, into My spreader flags the burgee that we all recognize today. In the days when there were large fleets racing, the Club’s elders decided that a few hot skippers should not get everything. The idea of the Racing Flag was born. If you were trying hard, and if you came out for races, you earned the flag of the year. The last set of flags to be discussed is the justly famous cruising flags. These beauties for the Commodore Year are unveiled at the Change of Command circle raft up. Rules determine how your boat can win this pennant. The motivation behind awarding flags to boats with ten or more cruising points is to encourage enjoyment of our boats and to broaden our circle of HISC friends. Each year the cruising committee designs a flag for the year. Members may earn their flag (1 per boat) by accumulating ten cruising points during the club year between March and March of the following year. The points come from participating in club cruising events as follows. Host a Cruise or Land Lubber’s Party gains 2 points. Raft overnight with another member boat yields 1 per location. Extended cruises will earn a maximum of 2 points per boat. Normally, only the first time you overnight with another member's boat in the same place counts. Cruising flags Exception: if you “adopt” newer, you may meet them in the same place twice and earn two points for each boat. Participate in HISC blood drives, gains a point for each blood drive. Attend Land Lubber’s party is worth a point. The wild card, in addition to the above, you may go anywhere with any other HISC members boat once and earn one point. How did this all come to be? Doug Knickerbocker told me the origins of the cruising flags. In 1992 he gathered some cruisers and ap- proached the Board regarding awarding cruisers with a token of their support of one of the four functional areas of the Club. Doug, Cruising Chair Ron McKie, and Bill Stahl pleaded the case. The three met some resistance at first. Then Commodore Pat Brian put his foot down. That did it. The Board embraced the idea, and the annual cruising flag was born. Due to his leadership, Doug became the Cruising Chairman for 1993. Now that a flag was required, what design would it sport? Ma- rine life would be appropriate. The Chairman looked no further than First cruising flag the Florida license plate on his car. His plate supported the “Save the Manatee” campaign. As you can see, “artist” is part of his skill set. If you could follow the rules as stated above, you might think it is hard to collect these jewels. You would be wrong. Even if you only went to dock-side events, as we often did, it was easy to scarf your annual pennant. Every year we hosted two events, gave blood, and were on hand at the Land Lubber’s party. That gave us five right there. It’s easy; anyone can do it.