I don’t recall the exact year I joined the Bequia Sailing Club, I had neither the time nor the inclination to become a member. I wasn’t a sailor, and that’s an understatement! My previous attempts to be of some use on a sailboat had been pretty dismal and I had long given up trying.
There are many stories as to who really started the Bequia Sailing Club and most have an element of truth to them. The Sailing Club and its subsequent Easter Regatta took the place of the Whitsuntide Races, and as a result Bequia began to have more organized sailing events. Hodge Taylor was the first Commodore, followed by Too Tall Tom Hopman, and although many people in the club were my good friends I never once thought of being a part of it.
That day changed when Tom, who had recently been made Commodore, snagged me at the Frangi Bar. When he asked why I wasn’t involved with the Sailing Club I laughed, everyone on Bequia knew I was hopeless in a boat! Tom sat me down at a table and urged me to join, stressing that I didn’t have to know anything about boats to be a useful member, that there was more to the Bequia Sailing Club than the Easter Regatta and sailing.
I DID join the Sailing Club, and was an active landlubbing member for several years. The Sailing Club usually met in bars, (no surprise there!) and were social events as well as structured meetings; members rarely left totally sober but a lot was accomplished during the space of a couple of hours. A great deal of work went into the planning of the Regatta, and as there were no big sponsors money for prizes had to be raised throughout the year. It was a fun group of people, and for someone with an aversion to formal meetings I started looking forward to the gatherings.
One of the major problems the club faced was the lack of local involvement. There were no Bequia ladies at the meetings and no younger men. We wanted to encourage more local participation and that’s when a Junior Sailing Club was suggested. If we had a group of young children learning sailing skills from their elders they would graduate to the adult club once they were old enough. This idea was met with enthusiasm but we had one big stumbling block; we would have to teach the youngsters how to sail and where would we find boats? The answer seemed obvious, we would build Bequia Dinghies for them.
Building those sailboats became my job and my passion, and along with my friend Nancy Boak I started the Junior Sailing Club Fundraising Committee. The club members pledged to teach the young people how to sail the dinghies, all I had to do was figure out ways to raise the money to make it all happen. For a few years I did what I was good at, I organized all the food and tickets for many fun and adventurous excursions, which were enjoyed so much that people still talk about them thirty years later!