I received a phone call shortly before midnight, learning that the Canadian Skud18 team of Dave Cook and Brenda Hopkin had disintegrated their keel foil during a high-speed tow, while returning back to port after racing.
I was at the boat by 7.30 AM the next day. The plan became for them to use our keel foil in their boat, but first we had to remove the bulb, so that the foil would lift out of the boat. First we had to lift our boat, TP2, and put it on a Sonar trailer. The keel was lowered down and we begun trying to pry it off. Ezra Culver came to help the Canadian team coach, Brian Todd, Stacey Wilson and the rest of us. Ezra works on boats professionally and has experience of Skud18 work. We all worked hard for a couple of hours, but the bulb didn’t move much. We had to go to plan B, which was to adapt TP2 to fit David and Brenda, but the problem was that they would not make the first race of the day. This is when Ricky Watters offered his boat for the day, a true act of sportsmanship. The Canadians have their Paralympic trials in this regatta, but he was not in contention and didn’t mind watching the races from the sideline for the day. I drove off to a Napa Auto store to buy a tapping device, in order to secure the TP2 bulb, while the Canadian team rushed to get Dave and Brenda out to the racecourse in Ricky’s boat. The Shake-A-Leg staff and me had to first put Dave and Brenda’s boat back on their dolly, so that we could use the elevated stands that their boat was on. It was a lot of lifting back and fourth, but we eventually got the job done and I headed out to the racecourse.