10 September 2004

Dear Andrew,

Your correspondent, Derek Bouwer, seemed serious in his contention that Messrs Nankin & Meek learned their trade in Oppies.

If my less than perfect memory serves correctly, Mr Nankin was a doyen of the Fireball class, and Mr Meek had already won his first Rothman’s week regatta, by the time the optimist arrived on the shores of this country.

I wonder how much skill they would have acquired had their formative sailing years been limited to sailing in a pram dinghy with an unstayed mast, and how much of their skill was acquired from the experience of sailing other vessels with stayed masts, foresails, and sometimes even trapezes and spinnakers while growing up.

(I also got a very interesting mind picture of a twenty something year old Nankin, crouched in the bottom of an Oppie, desperately trying to secure his future as a heavy in South African sailing)

I note that you are now in Port Elizabeth. I hope it was not you that misled Mr Bouwer.

Regards,

Michael Robinson.