Anyway, we bought our Thistle in Tacoma, Washington and towed it up to Dan's garage. We named our boat (hull number #3175) Endurance after our hero Ernest Shackleton's most excellent ship. Since then we have raced the boat at Leschi Marina on Lake Washington.

The story actually goes back even before the Thistle. When I graduated from college in 1988, Dan, Curt and  I tried racing our 14' family C-Lark at Leschi. A C-Lark is kind of like a Thistle with training wheels. While we had some fun, it didn't take long to realize that there wasn't much excitement to be had racing C-Larks (I think there were only 3 boats in the "fleet" including us). The real action was sailing Thistles and J-24's.

To make matters worse, my agelong buddy Darrin  was crewing on a boat in the Thistle fleet at the time. It was pretty embarassing to talk with him after the races. After some small talk, I would have to admit that we had come in last place. That is, last place in a fleet of three boats. Oh yea... I dont think Darrin has sailed Thistles much in recent years, but he has been working on refurbishing hull #725. You will find photos of that project on this page.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Curt and I finally sold the C-Lark, and I was "dingy-less" for a number of years.  Then, in 1996, Dan, Curt & Liesl approached me about buying Thistle #3175. We of course did just that. Since we all had sailing experience, we thought Thistle racing couldn't be all that tough.

Well, were we ever wrong. I think we finished in a solid last place our first season and in the bottom fourth our second season. The 1998 season doesn't look a whole lot better. Dan noted just the other night that, "of all the boats that have started all the 1998 races, we are in last place". Nice.

We've done everything wrong a Thistle sailor could hope to accomplish in a Thistling career. We've dumped the boat numerous times and swamped it even more frequently. We've rammed the dock, a Boston Whaler, the beach and even another Thistle (unfortunately I was driving in two of those instances). We've ripped sails, broken blocks and hoisted halyards to the top of the mast without a sail attached. You name it and we have probably done it. But has it ever been fun.

We hope that when we grow up we will be kick-ass sailors like some of the boats in our fleet. On frequent occassion we still come in last like we used to in the C-Lark. At least now we have lots of company. It is tough when you are competing against really skilled sailors who are Thistle fanatics. Some of these guys (and women) have been sailing these boats since they were first designed. Well, at least it seems that way.

Despite our poor results, Thistle racing has been a great fun. Thistle sailors as a whole are a great group of people. The boats are beautiful & relatively inexpensive to sail and maintain. Making the boat go fast is a tough proposition. As we determined in 1997, "the devil is in the details."

This page chronicles our trials and tribulations with Thistle sailing. Both the low and high points. Hope you enjoyed it.

Tim Whelan
#3175

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It was funny for about the first 5 minutes.
That is, until we almost dumped it again.