New Yorker having to miss 60th
The Wilson Trophy
By Chris Museler, Team New York Yacht Club (2009 will be my second Wilson missed in eight years, both due to child birthing responsibilities. Note to self: Stop having sex in August!)
There are six Manchester stamps in my passport. Not much else in there. Up until very recently, my only view of England has been of the highways and winding pastoral roads leading up to little West Kirby on the Wirral. When I tell that to anyone but a sailor they are quite confused. But to me and any American who has been lucky enough to run down the edge of the Marine Lake at 7 a.m. Sunday morning saying, “I can’t BELIEVE they’re really starting on time,” and to have stood on their chair to raise a glass at one of Saturday evenings grand dinners under the tent, West Kirby and the Wilson Trophy are undeniably the most exciting and enjoyable combination one can imagine for a sailing event.
For Americans, the event is fabled. It has always been referred to as the unofficial world championship for team racing, even today. The top two US teams have always received an invite and sailors would come back saying, “It’s crazy, they sheet from the stern. And there’s this guy Roger Dodger who does this pirouette when he tacks, he’s amazing!” And it is always bitter sweet for every first timer. Tough nuts to crack include trying not to stall a Firefly upwind, learning that even though the Brits look like they’re partying “with” you like rock stars Saturday night, they always wind up leaving two to three hours earlier than you to get some rest, and getting used to the constant twitter of Tufts University coach Ken Legler over the loudspeakers while you try to not get spanked by Society Ladies so you can make the quarter finals, you think, because the Swiss League format continually confounds.
It is a baptism, really, that leads to the strongest bonds between competitor and organizer more than any event in the world. It’s not just that Jim Bramley will literally hold your hand while you register, book a hire car, find your host and pick up your extra ticket for dinner that engenders sailors to the Wilson Trophy. It’s not just that local families open up their homes to sometimes over zealous foreigners, or ex-patriots, every year without fail, or that the club house, overlooking one of the most beautiful estuaries in the world, absolutely drips with history that peaks your fascination of the area and its sailors. All these attributes, the hospitality, personalities and scene, are surely the reason sailors keep coming back.
For 60 years now, the reasons the best sailors in the world come in the first place haven’t changed either. The brief explanation of the event is unbelievable to most: You have the best team racers in the world, racing a fleet of colored boats that are only used for this event each year, in a box of water, on the sea (or sometimes sand), up against the most picturesque seaside English town you can imagine, while townspeople stand along sidewalk and in grandstands and cheer every slam dunk, mark trap and jeer at the umpires when they blow the whistle on a Hilbre Highlander. Yup, it’s the perfect sailing arena, and you have to experience it to believe it.
Few get to experience that heart dropping march up the board on Sunday. No matter where you stood at the beginning of the day, you will triumphantly climb the ranks with each win. Then it’s the quarter finals, then the semis, “Oh my god we’re in the finals!” And like an NCAA Tournament Finals, the entire waterfront is at a fever pitch, people literally on the edge of their seats and everyone, sailors included, have butterflies in their stomachs.
The feeling is indescribably to raise that tiny little keeper trophy over your head. And same for the feeling of anyone who watched those sailors rise above all on any given Wilson Sunday. But one thing is for sure, it will happen every year, it’s not to be missed, and there will only be one stamp that dominates my passport for years to come.