Turnabout Racing

 By Jesse Deupree

The first boat I ever raced was a Turnabout, a wonderful small plywood catboat developed and named by a man called Turner. Turnabouts were as common as seagulls in many Maine harbors in the late fifties and sixties, and probably about as popular with other yachtsmen when flocks of them took over a harbor or channel. I began racing as crew, but soon graduated to skippering my family’s boat when my older brother moved up a size in our Yacht Club’s fleets.         

A Turnabout sails past  Basket Island

For me, sailboat racing has always been a means to an end. There are times when I have come ashore after a race and commented about a bird I saw, or the way the clouds looked, and received a blank stare in return from someone who may have been more concentrated on the race itself. I admit that if I had won the race in question, the conversation felt more enjoyable, but many of the lessons I have learned from racing (or sailing in general for that matter) have not been easy. “Winning makes you bigger, losing makes you stronger” comes to mind.
 
Those early races taught me about wind and water and whether to pass a given buoy to starboard or to port. I also learned about human nature.

I remember one race well. The course was set inside Monument, Negro and Wood Island – the islands that protected the small Turnabouts from the bigger ocean waves -- using three government marks: a black can, a nun, and a red and black can. 

The sea breeze had steadied and filled in, so the course was twice around a triangle, with a final beat to the finish at the black can that lay at the entrance to the outer harbor. I had taken the lead on the first two triangles. My friend Billy lay a decent second, but the race was mine to win.

As I rounded the leeward mark for the second time, I came across Maggie, who had snagged the mark on her first rounding and become quite stuck. Her mainsheet had caught the mark and pulled the end out of her hand, leaving the knot at the end of the sheet jammed in the block on the boom, beyond her reach, with her sail full and her boat pinned by the wind in a way she could not free. She was not in danger, she was not asking for help, but she was in a predicament, and I sailed right by.
 
Let me say that this story should carry no undertone that women don’t sail as well as men. Sailing was an equal opportunity sport even then. Boys and girls competed equally, no quarter asked or given, especially because we were young enough that other considerations had not occurred to any of us. If I thought anything, it was that Maggie should use her knife, which we were all required to carry, and which most of us kept in a pocket of our shorts, secured with a lanyard, as a badge of professional honor. Besides, I had never been shown how to ask for help.

To my surprise, Billy stopped and set Maggie free. I would ask him what he was thinking that day, but that would require that he remember the incident the same way, and if he didn’t, more would be lost to me than gained. I remember her smiling at him a year or so later during our first game of spin-the-bottle, so perhaps he had an early inkling of those other considerations. Whatever his reasons, his delay meant that my victory was assured, and I set out on a long starboard tack to the layline to the finish.

Billy, smart enough to try something other than following me home, set off on port, which immediately cast him against Monument Island, requiring a series of tacks along the shore. I don’t know at what point he realized he was on to something, I know I didn’t until it was far too late. The fact of the matter was that he had sailed out of the now strengthening tide, and had discovered a tactic that became standard practice for us all in short order. My long final port tack to victory became a slog to second place as Billy came roaring into the finish on starboard, avoiding the tide until the last minute, and easily taking the win.
 
If he felt satisfaction that day, he deserved it. Virtue may be its own reward, but not only had he saved the damsel in distress, he also got the prize. In hindsight, things turned out fine for me as well. I got two lessons, one of which was which side of the course to favor on the outgoing tide. 
 

The Russells: Sharing With Everyone

by Janice Hamilton

If you are new to the Pool, there’s a good chance you have never met Gordon Russell. He is a quiet person and doesn’t participate in many of the summer social or sports activities. The best chance to run into him is at the July 4 parade, when he usually rides in an army Jeep honoring veterans.

Despite his low-key presence, Gordon and his parents, Jane and Joe Russell, have made big contributions to Biddeford Pool over the years, notably granting a conservation easement of the land they own at East Point to the Maine Audubon Society so everyone can enjoy it.

Gordon Russell, 2017 July 4 parade

Gordon’s grandparents were the first family members to discover the Pool. His mother’s father, Dudley J. Hard, was a Cleveland businessman who noticed that a lot of steam generated by Cleveland’s many industries was going to waste. “He saw a way to make a buck out of it by harvesting industrial steam to generate electricity,” says Gordon. “He made a fortune.”

When Dudley Hard and his wife Mildred started summering at the Pool, they stayed in various guest houses. In 1930, they bought the big white house where Gordon still lives (on the north side of Lester B., second house past the croquet courts).

“My grandparents had a strong attachment to Biddeford Pool and that came down through my mother to me,” says Gordon. “Every year of my life, I have spent the summer, or part of the summer, here.”

When Gordon was a child, the Russells lived in Cleveland, where Joe was a businessman. In the late 1960s, they began to feel unsafe there because of growing racial tensions, so they had the Pool house winterized. As of 1970, the family split their time between Biddeford Pool and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

“My mother knew everybody around here and was a great friend of the Dupees and the Oldershaws,” Gordon recalls, while his father loved to play golf. “My memory of my father is of him with his clubs, passing through the hedge to the golf course every day.”

Gordon has been a Maine resident for almost 50 years. He attended St. Francis College (now the University of New England), and he lived at the Pool until he got married in 1978. He and his wife and two daughters lived in Saco, but Gordon returned to the Pool after his divorce in 2000 and he lives here year-round with his partner, Susan Shorey. He admits that February is difficult, but “I have two elderly cats and I can’t leave them, so I stay and I shovel.”

Reading about history and archaeology keep him busy. His interest in military history in particular stems from family history. Grandfather Hard served in the Spanish-American War and fought briefly overseas toward the end of World War I, while Joe Russell served in Europe during World War II and trained troops at Fort Polk, Louisiana during the Korean War.

Archaeology is another topic that fascinates Gordon, and he played a role in excavating a canoe that was exposed on the Big Beach by a storm in 1986. Marks left by metal tools and a step for a mast indicated the canoe was built by the settlers, but further research is impossible. Once the canoe had been removed from the wet sand, it became too difficult and expensive to preserve the wood.

Gordon’s most important contribution to the community came the day he agreed that East Point should be shared with everyone. Jane and Joe Russell owned the triangle of land at the end of East Point. His mother asked him whether he would like to build a house there. “I thought about it and realized I would have to blast rock to get water out there. Also, it would be have been very isolated, so I said no,” Gordon recalls. In 1974, the Russells signed an agreement with the Maine Audubon Society, granting it a conservation easement that preserves this spot for aesthetic, scientific and natural purposes. As a result, every year, hundreds of people walk out to East Point to enjoy the view.

Gordon also ensures that the field he owns directly across the street from his house is mowed every summer, affording an unobstructed view from Lester B. Orcutt Boulevard toward Great Pond and the ocean beyond.