Left: the white plastic balls have come a long way since they were first spotted bouncing high and fast 60 years ago – this is part of the nerve centre on François Gabart’s latest Ultim SVR Lazartique. Everything you see is custom built, but while those enormous yet astonishingly light Harken winches look like they came from NASA, the core principles of pursuing minimum friction under high load to deliver maximum output are exactly the same as those first Italian-manufactured Harken ‘red line’ winches that popped up in the Ton Cup and Admiral’s Cup classes during the 1980s. In passing, the sprung self-tailing system found on those first Harken winches, originally developed by Barbarossa, also set a new benchmark. From the most powerful to the lightest, lowest-friction blocks needed to fly a Nacra 17 this well (above) – all the result of a lifelong battle against the ‘evil, dark overlord of friction’. The same principle as those original prototype parts with which Lowell North and Pete Barrett won gold at the 1968 Olympics… though the latest ceramic balls fitted to today’s Zircon blocks would give their original white plastic predecessors one heck of a tough time in the playground
low-friction as the blocks they produced. ‘Every time I came in with a different diameter design they’d say, “You are not going to be satisfied until you have blocks that have only 1mm of diameter change! You just won’t stop…”’ Peter tried to explain the reasons behind
his different sizes, but ‘they weren’t sailors; they were old-school tool and die makers – really good at what they did. They were supplying most of the shells used in aero- planes, spitting out all those bullets… and spitting out our blocks at the same time!’
What’s in a name? By the late 1970s Vanguard Boats had established a reputation for producing both top-quality Olympic boats and dependable collegiate dinghies. So the Harken brothers stamped ‘Vanguard’ onto their blocks as well. Until Gary Comer had a different idea. The company history says Comer didn’t
think other boat manufacturers would want to buy hardware with a rival name, but now Peter gives me another version. ‘Gary told us to put our own name on it,
because then we were going to be liable for anything that went wrong – front and centre to the world. And of course he added, “Now I’m going to put the Harken
name in the catalogue!” So then we became Harken Vanguard.’ At the time, Peter reminds me, ‘the boat
company was both bigger and much busier than the hardware company. We only had a basic mainsheet system, with a ratchet block on the floor and blocks for the boom. That was it. Later on we made a becket block, which we really needed. And then we got into some other equipment…’ Very gradually Peter and Olaf brought
more of the hardware manufacturing in- house – and when the tool-and-die brothers were ready to retire they bought out the entire business. ‘We were very amicable; there was no fighting or any- thing.’ Finally, in the 1980s, they sold off the Vanguard boatbuilding operation to focus exclusively on hardware. ‘From the start we always managed to
get fantastic employees, and we had a very loose running company – with lots of dogs! I had my old Mac, and he went 17 years… I let him run free most of the time. ‘Buddy [Melges] would bring him back
in his car and say, “Peter, I’ve got a friend of yours, again.’’ He chuckles, before adding that Mac was quite famous for hunting down the sandwiches of Peter’s regatta competitors.
A missing dog Along with local pursuits like iceboating and E Scow sailing Peter also campaigned for the Olympics. It was a Tornado regatta that took him and Mac to Sandusky, Ohio – some time in the late 1970s or early 80s, though again he won’t let capturing an exact year distract from a good story. One afternoon Peter sailed back to the
dock – and his dog wasn’t there waiting for him. ‘I think someone picked him up,’ he tells me, the heartbreak still obvious even after 40-plus years. ‘I spent the whole week looking, and the Sandusky news - papers got a hold of it. I was invited into a Baptist church where they were all singing and yelling, and that crowd wasn’t very pleased with me being there. But the pastor told my story, and he said, “I want you young guys to go out and find that dog.”’ Despite many such search efforts it
wasn’t until the regatta ended and Peter was about to leave town that he stopped by a hardwood plant and showed Mac’s picture to the gate guard – who had just spotted a similar dog running around the huge facility. He let Peter inside, closed all the gates, and soon the two buddies were reunited. ‘He was skittish by then, because he’d been on his own for a week. I just sat
SEAHORSE 41
MATIAS CAPIZZANO
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