Good friends, good sailing and we owe it all to our three amigos….

After 14 hours in the car we are finally home in RI. It was a beautiful drive home through Canada and Maine with plenty of time to reflect. We talked about the highlights and the people…. Scott’s favorite part of the event was the 3-way battle in the last race between himself and the two former World Champions Jan Scholten and Arnoud Hummel. He loved how they just pushed each other so hard to the second weather mark, through the reach and downwind, through the next reach and around the leeward mark, trading places back and forth. They ended the race 1, 2, 3... now they were three... three World Champions. You could see him light up as he gave me the blow-by-blow. One of my favorite parts (as a spectator) was seeing Andy Roy, Terry Neilson and John Bertrand call Scott over to their table at the awards ceremony to ask him “three questions.” They were all smiling (I just wish I had taken a photo!) and they said, “We have three questions. How old are you? How tall are you and how much do you weigh?” I loved watching…these three masters of the sport just a little older now, a little greyer but still so fit and full of the game…so cool.

You know, I really don’t think that Scott and I would have ever gotten involved with the Laser Masters scene if it hadn’t been for the good times that we have shared over the years with John, Peter and Mark. I remember back in 2004…we were out to dinner with the three, listening to them laughing and telling stories of the different places that they had sailed at the various Laser Master Worlds. It was after that night that Scott and I decided to check it out…. In 2005 was when we took our anniversary to Forteleza, Brazil. This recent Worlds was our third and what a way to travel, do something that you love and hang with people that you enjoy.  The camaraderie, the physical exercise and the fuel of competition all add up to staying young!

The 70 year olds that you see at these events are not the 70 year olds that we normally see! They are laughing, fit and feisty! As Scott always says to me, ‘you have to keep pushing your body to remind it that its alive or else you just get old.’ So, on that note and in the words of Fred Taylor, NE Patriots 33 year OLD running back, we will “run until the wheels fall off.”  Because we know that two things are for certain…. we will all get old and the wheels will eventually fall off so …might as well have a good time with good friends until that time comes!

Photo: John Bentley, Mark Bear, Peter Seidenberg