by Joe Cline
PNW HERO: DICK ROSE Around the Pacific Northwest, heroes come in many forms, and 48° North is excited to honor some of them in this series. Here is part one of an interview with Dick Rose, a man many think of as “The Rules Guy” but whose accomplishments and contributions to sailing are truly extraordinary and wide reaching. Can you tell us about how you got started in sailing? My dad was a powerboat guy and into fishing. We spent summers in a small house on Peconic Bay, on the non-posh northern fork of eastern Long Island. My mother had learned to sail at a camp, though she hadn’t sailed for years. Dad built me a Chris Craft pram, which had a sailing rig; since he was into powerboats he respected the Chris Craft name. My mother tried to teach me to sail, and she couldn’t make the boat go to windward. In hindsight, it was a terrible design. She discovered that there was a junior program just a bike ride away at the Southold Yacht Club. The volunteer junior instructor was 48º NORTH
Frank Robinson, a retired guy who had won the Star World Championship in the 1920s. The junior boat was one you’ve almost surely never heard of: the Lawley 15. From a distance, you’d say, “Ah, that’s a Snipe.” There were five of them, and my parents bought me one. I can remember the first race, I was last by half a mile. But I was learning to sail and thought, ‘This is neat. If I could do this better, I could be in this game.’ So, I applied myself. I did that for three or four summers, got much better and even won a couple of trophies. I grew up in Port Washington, New York, on Long Island Sound. It was a sailing hub, with three yacht clubs on Manhasset Bay.
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MARCH 2021
