Peaches

Paul Cayard is very good at sailing, and also very good at providing media reports from his various activities. Paul’s reports are occasionally included in Scuttlebutt to add to our event coverage, while other sailing media will print whatever Paul says - regardless of its news-worthiness (heh Paul, no offense intended).

This week Paul is in Dubai, competing in the Sea Dubai RC44 Gold Cup. Here is section from Paul’s report on the day before the event starts:

“We had Bob Little ("Peaches" as he was nicknamed by his mother) on the helm. Bob is a very good sailor who decided to get a real job a number of years ago. As the fleet racing is an amateur driver competition, Bob enjoyed the opportunity to get some starting practice in. He did a great job working with our bowman Morgan Gutenkunst getting their time-on-distance judgment down.”

Now, Bob Little is a very old friend of mine, and maybe he told Paul that his mom gave him that nickname. However, I am here to correct the facts.

About 30 years ago I was helping deliver a 45-foot IOR boat from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and was joined by Bob Little and Kimo Worthington. About mid trip, I suspect our poor food planning became evident, and Bob got hungry. We seemed to have a lot of canned fruit, so one day Bob started consuming the cans of peaches. One after another. Needless to say, he ate enough for Kimo and I to nickname him “Peaches”.

Regardless, Bob is a great guy, and I am pleased to see him having the opportunity to compete with Paul.