Arguably we should have spent some years in that prominent Newport Beach fleet, learning the finer points of sail trim in the unforgiving classroom of one-design-racing. Alternatively, our local lake's yacht club was building an active fleet of Coronado 15's, which also could have schooled us well.
But, young and impetuous, I had an addiction to speed. One day, as my future TW and I were day-sailing a rented Lido in Newport Beach, a white monohull of the same length with a plum bow passed (flew by) us to leeward, tacked on to port and crossed us with feet to spare.
I asked our local Schock Boats dealer, Dave Anderson, who had been trying to get me to buy a new Lido instead of renting all the time. He told me I must have been slam-dunked by Roger Welsh's International 14, White Tornado. And would I like to get a ride on one? It turned out that Dave was in the process of ordering his own Int-14 from Schock Boats and could offer me a deal if he could double the order?
Slam Dunk. We ordered our tangerine tornado and named her Wet & Wild.
TW and I learned many skills in a few short years in the I-14's we never would have learned in Lidos or C-15's. We learned how to capisize. We learned how to bail out a non-self-bailing cockpit. We learned how to trapeze. We learned how to fly a spinnaker while trapezing. We learned how to right a swamped I-14 while its spinnaker was in shrimping mode. We learned trusting team work to the point where we could swap positions - helm and trapeze - depending on the weather.
The only thing we couldn't resolve was which one of us was the better skipper. So we went to the bank and bought a couple of Lasers to resolve it. Maybe that was a bad idea because that controversy continues unresolved to this day.
Eventually, we donated our Wet & Wild to Harvey Mudd College. As the years passed we realized the Fourteeners we met up with in this open developmental class were the best sailors, teachers and comrades we would ever know.
These pictures were taken 40 years ago by my father-in-law.
