Bruce Kirby: New job, Changing country

Bruce Kirby has earned a significant place in sailing history, as a yacht designer, three-time Olympian and honored sportsman who has reshaped the sport of sailing. His story is now captured in the book, The Bruce Kirby Story: From the River to the Sea.

Beginning in Ottawa, Canada and progressing to the world stage, the memoir weaves through a remarkable life of adventure, artistry, powerful storms, nasty business, sweet success, memorable characters and family. Here is an excerpt:

Kirby is hired as Editor of One-Design Yachtsman and meets the players
Two days after returning to Montreal and while sitting at my spot on the Montreal Star’s news desk I got a call from One-Design Yachtsman Publisher Knowles Pittman with an offer of the editor’s job.

Wow, what a disruption that would be for the family and me – leaving a secure job where I had been climbing the success ladder, selling the little house we had bought a couple of years earlier, taking the daughters out of school, leaving a wonderful bunch of friends and the great Montreal sailing scene, and perhaps above all, crossing that border into another country.

What would my British-leaning mother have to say about that! I told Knowles it would take a lot of thought and asked him to get back to me in a week or so.

By the time he called, we had researched every pro and con and had talked to a host of good friends and relatives. We would do it if the pay and conditions were satisfactory. We made a tentative deal over the phone and Knowles invited Margo and me to come to Chicago to get acquainted and meet some of the other players.

He met us at O’Hare and we drove to the Pittman home in Wilmette, a north Chicago suburb. This was in October of 1964 and the Johnson-Goldwater election was coming up next month. We were comforted to see a Vote for Johnson sign in the Pittman living room window.

Apart from spending hours at the One-Design offices, Knowles had arranged for a reception at the home of Dick Latham, distinguished industrial designer, good sailor, and very funny guy. It was a typical stand-up-and-drink-too-much shindig with about 25 guests, and the highlight for me was when I watched Jack Barnett, the publisher of Golf Digest and one of the One-Design directors, pouring himself what he thought was a Scotch and water at the far end of the room.

The hostess had made a jug of ready-mixed gin martini and I knew that. Jack did not know it, and calmly served himself a Scotch and martini. I didn’t want to shout and was moving quickly down the room to warn him when he took his first gulp. He looked at his drink just as I arrived and said, “That is SOME Scotch and water.” I told him what he had in his glass and he just smiled and chuckled. I knew I could get along just fine with these people.

For more information on the book, click here.