The Greatest Sailing Stunt; Peter Bateman in the Fireballs

I came across an old post that I wrote to the Fireball website on the occasion of Peter Bateman's death 11 years ago. The post, written in 2000, was one of my first posts to that newfangled Internet. The sailing yarn is set at one of the early CORK (Canadian Olympic Race Week Kingston) regattas held at Kingston, Ontario.

"It was the CORK regatta in the early 70's. It had been a breezy week and if I remember correctly Peter had a clear lead in the Fireball fleet. The last day of racing dawned in the midst of a violent storm. I was hunkered down in the Kingston Yacht Club (the International 14's were based at KYC) with a crowd of restless sailors waiting for the races to be cancelled. Sheets of rain would obscure the yacht club jetty and we were watching the anenometer as squalls would hit, pushing wind speeds in the 40's. We were cheering the anenometer as it hit new highs and one vicious gust drove it near 60. It was equivalent to a thunderstorm squall that had decided to camp over Kingston for the morning.

In this maelstrom, through the rain streaked windows of Kingston YC, there appeared a ghostly apparition of a sail. Most of us dismissed it as a grey, rainy, obscured trick on the eyes but this apparition grew more distinct and we could no longer dismiss it. Some crazy bastard was sailing his racing dinghy into the club in this gale!!

It was Peter Bateman and crew in their Fireball. They had sailed over from Fort Henry (a distance of approx 2 miles) where most of the CORK dinghies were based. He pulled up nonchalantly and, in rain that was still zinging horizontally, inquired, with that typical British reserve, whether there would be racing that day.

In my many years around this sport, I have never witnessed such a display, which could be characterized both as one of the greatest demonstration of seamanship in a dinghy and also as one of the most foolhardy.

Nevertheless, in my mind, it was the greatest in-your-face, one- upmanship, you bunch are a bunch of wusses, come out and play if you dare, throw down the gauntlet challenge I have ever witnessed in sailing

I never introduced myself to Peter and I don't know if anyone did ask him about his jaunt over to the yacht club but that episode will always be part of my sailing lore.

Racing was cancelled for all classes that day except for the International 14's. The International 14's went out for their long distance race that afternoon in bright sunshine and 30 knots. As a pickup crew I just remember the 6 or so capsizes on the first reach before we retired. Just a handful finished and it was captured on film by Warren Miller."

Peter Bateman won a World Championship in Fireballs early on, and was quite possibly reigning World Champion when he sailed this CORK regatta. Back in the day, he was considered one of Britain's elite sailors though I don't think he ever made it to the Olympics.

To make ammends for the Classic Moths butchering a Fireball and to show that I have a great deal of respect for the Fireball as a racing dinghy (I sailed on one in Ohio when I was a teenager), here is a very good YouTube video of the class.