SIGHTINGS Back in mid-August, Leading Lady, the old Peterson 40 that Bob ‘Big Daddy’ Klein owned in the early ‘80s, gave her last performance. Neil Weinberg from the Boat Yard at Grand Marina reported that the current owner had passed away and, since he had no family, the county was “disposing of the assets.” A salvage company took possession of the aluminum boat and, just after the photo on the following pages was taken, hauled her away to be dismantled for scrap. “It’s sad to see her go,” noted Paul Kamen, who sailed aboard the Lady many times under Klein’s ownership, “but it was a design from the dark years of the IOR. In this market I can understand why she’s not worth trying to save as a cruising boat.” Nevertheless, Kamen recalled two vivid memories of his time aboard. “Leading Lady had an all-aluminum hull and deck, which made it very noisy downstairs when things were happening above your bunk. On our first Vallejo Race to Coyote Point — back when the fleet was so big they had to split it up into two different destinations — we were racing in the same IOR division as Chris Corlett, who I think was sailing the Serendipity 43 Scarlett O’Hara that year. We were all in our pipe berths at around midnight when, not two minutes after the last cabin light Mark Freitas recalls that this ‘Leading Lady’ broach oc- was turned off, we heard a curred while Bob Klein waved to tourists on a ferry. group of sailors marching down the dock to where we were berthed. Corlett’s voice was chanting ‘Hup-two-three-four . . . .’ Corlett’s crew climbed on board and did a full military close order drill, stomping on the aluminum deck for five minutes, then marched back up the dock! “Another time, during the Big Boat Series, we still had some of the crew from the previous campaigns. There was some friction between Bob, who always ran a very competitive but very friendly family program, and the self-styled pros. On the way back from one race that went badly, Bob confided in me: ‘Paul, never go racing with people you wouldn’t also go cruising with.’ Words to live by!” Though he never sailed aboard Lady, Rhett Smith recalled a memorable encounter with her. “I was sailing my first ever ‘big time’ sailboat race aboard a Cal 2-27. We were racing up the Cityfront where a number of regattas were converging. For some reason we were rounding X to starboard while Leading Lady was going to take it to port. Both boats were heading across to the shore on starboard with us below the mark and them above, so we were hidden behind their massive overlapping jib. When they gybed around the mark, I was looking directly at 10 pairs of the roundest eyes I can ever remember seeing. Within five seconds, their beautiful pointy aluminum bow was halfway though our foredeck just in front of the house. End of my first YRA event, DNF. “Bob was as gracious as anyone could be and didn’t put the blame on anyone else. In hindsight, I’m sure someone in the afterguard should have been looking, as it was a very crowded mark rounding, but he never made any excuse other than ‘I didn’t see you and I’m really sorry.’ Despite my witnessing less-than-honorable actions over the past 20 years of racing, Bob’s reaction has always led me to believe that sailboat racing is a gentleman’s sport.” Jim Robbins also remembers Klein’s grace under pressure. “I recall a breezy Farallones race aboard Leading Lady. We’d been struggling with the guy working out of the pole end fitting, but it seemed to be under control. As we approached the Gate, the kite blew out the head continued on outside column of next sightings page Page 64 •
Latitude 38
• November, 2011
ac 45s The America’s Cup show thankfully came back to the Bay last month when Oracle Racing returned for a testing program in its second pair of AC 45s. We received multiple reports of sailors getting buzzed by the wing-sailed cats as they prowled the Bay on the weekdays, which must have been a thrill for those fortunate enough to experience it. CEO Russell Coutts — who has handed off the reins of his boat to Aussie Darren Bundock — had his boys on the water frequently, but whatever they were doing was pretty secretive, or at least understandably
VAL GILLEN
COURTESY CHRIS KLEIN
leading lady’s last dance
