says, let’s get our mama’s sun umbrella. We put it in the front of the boat, and he steers with the oar, and we go all the way down- wind, close the umbrella, and paddle the thing back upwind!’ The memory stretches his smile even wider than usual. Once their father saw this jury rig he
built the boys a mast; their mother found a sail. ‘Full-battened main, big roach. And we just started sailing.’ In time their dad would join a consor-
tium to buy one of 60 Snipes built at the local sailing club; a lottery determined who got each boat. Nine-year-old Vince and 12- year-old Gastão were both quite impatient; ‘Every day or two we ask my dad, hey, did we get it? So finally we got our boat. We go to all the regattas inside the bay, and overnight. It was a fantastic time.’ In those early days, Vince says, ‘The
racing was not that big a deal for us. It was just more to go sailing.’ He remembers getting stuck down tide, trying to get home before dark. ‘We took tows from tug boats; grab the lines, come back at night. My dad had to be eating nails!’ Now he claims those adventures taught them important seamanship skills. ‘I’m a parent. In fact, I’m a grandparent now. But you have to be away from your dad to learn the lessons, right? You hit your head against the wall and learn for yourself.’ Vince and Gastão also did quite a bit of
racing in Snipes and Penguins before moving up to the Star. ‘It’s a harder boat to sail, and you have to have more money. But these guys, they needed crew. So even though we weighed about 150lb we started to crew. And if they were not sail- ing they’d say, “You go take the boat.” All of a sudden, we start to move up.’ It was the Star that first took the Brun
brothers out of Brazil. ‘Wow, travelling was pretty cool,’ Vince remembers. ‘Going to all those nice places.’ When the Soling was chosen for the Olympics Gastão got a boat and Vince crewed; ‘We went all over the place. It was a lot of fun.’ (They would even- tually represent Brazil at the 1976 and 1980 Games.) Back home, between regattas, Vince managed to fit in engineering school. In 1975 he travelled to his first two
North American regattas: the pre-Olympics in Kingston and the Star Worlds in Chicago. ‘Buddy [Melges] got me really drunk,’ Vince remembers. ‘I could barely sail the next day… it was so bad.’ Whether it was the sailing or the party-
ing (or both), Vince decided to move to the US and become a sailmaker; he took a job with Murphy & Nye in Clearwater, Florida. After work he sailed Lasers, both on his own and with a group that included future world champion Ed Baird. ‘We sailed a lot, going to Miami for the
Midwinters. In those days they had 200- some boats, it was just crazy. The first regatta I sailed I won. And everybody was like, who the hell is this guy?’ His smile widens. ‘I felt really good about that. I put Rain-X on the bottom of my Laser and I thought, this is the thing!’
52 SEAHORSE
Lowell North’s original 12 Metre Enterprise – seen at the 12 Metre Worlds in Newport with Brun in the role of tactician – never looked this smart in her America’s Cup heyday back in 1977. Enterprise was drawn as an improvement on Olin Stephens’ spectacular 1974 Cup winner Courageous… but was beaten to the 1977 Defender slot by Ted Turner, Gary Jobson and a very fired-up crew onboard the modified S&S design… Courageous
Clearwater is also where he met his
future wife, Marcia. ‘She was doing a boat delivery to Sydney, Australia. She had a boyfriend, a guy who used to crew for Robbie Haines,’ who later became an arch- rival, and then a teammate. ‘Small world, right? I was there as a sailmaker, and I see this good-looking girl.’ After Marcia broke up with that boyfriend she started dating Vince. ‘We married 1 October 1981,’ Vince remembers. ‘And we’ve been together ever since. Thirty-eight years. Yeah.’ Clearwater was beautiful but Vince says
that in the late 1970s ‘everything was about San Diego; Dennis was the king of the mountain. I was like, God, I want to go to San Diego.’ So when Lowell North came to Florida for the 1977 SORC Vince asked if they could meet. ‘Me and Marcia, we went and had dinner with Lowell. With the Pope!’ He laughs. ‘Everyone said, “You had dinner with the Pope? Wow!”’ Lowell offered Vince a job at North
Sails in Italy. ‘And I’m like, no, no, I want to go to San Diego.’ It wasn’t about the money, he insists. ‘I was in love with sail- ing, and I wanted to hang with the best guys so I could learn more and get better.’ A few weeks later Lowell called. ‘He
said, “We have a spot. When can you be here?” I said, “How about three days?”’ (San Diego is 2,500 miles away.) ‘So I put all this stuff in the car – stereo system, a big bag – and drove to San Diego… I lived with him for about three months.’ Later, after packing up the rest of their Clear - water life, Marcia followed him out west. ‘It was a good move,’ Vince says. ‘I
arrive, and Dennis Conner is asking, “Can you help me sail testing today?”’ He shakes his head. ‘Really? This is a dream, right?’ At the loft Vince began as a sail cutter
but also worked on new designs for his Soling programme. He credits Pete Barrett (one of Lowell’s ‘Tigers’) with teaching him how to make a fast sail out of very stretchy Dacron. ‘Without taking credit Pete was
designing the sails, and I would just learn along with him. Those guys in the old days, they knew how to control stretch to make a sail that was pretty good looking. Today it’s a completely different game.’ Vince also learned a few life lessons from
Lowell, first as his Star crew and later as his competitor. ‘Things that I was doing wrong, like hitting a mark at a worlds and trying to say I didn’t see it. He called me on that. That had a big impact. The environ- ment is what really dictates behaviour, so being in San Diego was really good for me.’ Vince still keeps in touch with many of
the people he used to work with. ‘North Sails means a lot to me. They’ve been my family for a long time.’
Crew and helm Unlike for most sailing legends, both of Vince’s Olympic appearances and three of his nine worlds victories came as a crew. All successful sailors have the will to
win but Vince combined that with versatil- ity; after winning the 1978 Soling Worlds crewing for his brother they won again in 1981, with Vince as helm and Gastão on the bow. (His third Soling world title came in 1983, crewing for Robbie Haines.) Vince says his brother, who decided to focus on business rather than sailing after the 1980 (boycott) Olympics, ‘was actu- ally the best sailor in the family; super talented, a natural. I was more the guy who works harder at it.’ In 1986 Vince added a gold Star to his
list of accomplishments. A decade later, at 49, he won the J/24 Worlds crewing for Chris Larson. The next year he steered his own J/24 – and won again. Add to this list winning two back-to-back Melges 24 Worlds (1998 and 1999) and the 2000 Etchells Worlds, and that’s five world championships in five years. ‘I love crew- ing,’ he said in a 2004 interview celebrating his election to the Sailing World Hall of Fame. ‘And it’s made me a better skipper.’
PAUL TODD/OUTSIDE IMAGES
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