I crewed on the "Romance" the Summer of '67 in the Virgins & Summer of '68 on the Galapagos trip.

Stumbled on the "I visited the Brigantine Romance" web page and as I read down and saw the pictures felt a lump come up in my throat. Then went on and found your "Brigantine Romance" web site ----- Wow ---- It is so nice that you would do something like that --- It really brought some memories back.

Those 2 Summers I spent on the "Romance with The Skipper & Mrs. Kimberly have been very influential on my life. I did not fully understand all of the things The Skipper said & did when I was on board but, as time has passed it has become so appartent to me how much I learned with them. The Skipper taught me the true meaning of words like --- proper, foresight &,, confidence.

One morning in the Virgins we did a pretty sloppy job of gybing and, almost tore a main sheet block out of the deck plate. Later that day when we got to the "Narrows", The Skipper decided to beat all the way up through them. We had to wareship each time we needed to change tacks because we could not get the bow through the wind. We wore ship over & over & over & over again untill we finally made it up. Why did The Skipper not tell me to start up the engine -----. At the end of the day though, we could put the main leach through the wind very gently --- and I can never remember a bad gybe the rest of that Summer --- Also, he gave me a "sea story" that I have enjoyed telling many times -----

And, I remember when he was teaching the crew how to reduce a sight. One day after we had done our paperwork and were pretty confident that we had gotten everything right - finally, we went up to folksail where The Skipper was (I think) sewing the bolt rope on a new topgallant sail he had been working on. We gave him our work sheet and after looking over it for a minute he said "OK" ---- I was so proud, I had done all of the steps right; the sextant & chronometer, HO214, the interpolations, the dead reckoning, & the plottimg ----- I was a navigator ---- And then The Skipper ask me what I thought was a very simple question dealing with converting magnetic to true. When I answered him he said, "well you are wrong ----- dead wrong" and nothing else was said ----. Well I went back and thought through his question, drew myself some diagrams and after a dew process of mental gymnastics & anguish determined that he was right and that I was in fact -- "dead wrong" ----. A few years later when I was taking my Private Airplane Written Exam I was confronted with the same question; I got it right that time ----

When you talk with the Skipper & Gloria again, please tell them I said hello. And, if they have an e-mail address and would not mind letting me have it, I would like very much to send them a note ----

Sincerely,