Opposite: Stan and Sally Honey back at home port in San Francisco and (above) navigating Comanche during her Transatlantic record attempt in 2016. Among many dinghy racing successes at both ends of the boat Sally Honey won titles in 505s, Fireballs and Thistles, including winning the 1978 North Americans as helm. She was Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year in 1973 and again in 1974


– and the pranks. ‘One time I had my 505 mast laid out, rerigging it because I was getting ready for summer. And I came back from work and where my mast was, there was a mast that was all full of big round holes!’ That mast belonged to a Yale professor,


Stan explains. ‘He’d bought a 420 mast, drilled a million holes in it, and then tried to see if it was much faster. Of course he couldn’t tell. But nevertheless when Sally stepped out to get a cup of coffee we replaced her mast with his.’ It didn’t take her long to figure it out, he admits, but it was entertaining.


Winning their side Stan graduated in 1978 and took a job at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which he could combine with grad school. ‘And when I drove out to the west coast I managed to drag Sally and Tam with me.’ The next few years were financially


stressful; Sally was working in a canvas shop for minimum wage while Stan had taken the ‘worst paying of all the job offers


that I got, but it was by far the most inter- esting. I would have worked there for free – it was just an amazing group.’ Fortunately, even though he was only a


part-time student at Stanford, he managed to charm the pair into the university’s married student housing – which halved their rent but broke all the rules. ‘Of course you were supposed to be married,’ Stan says, chuckling. ‘You were supposed to not run any businesses.’ (Sally started The Spinnaker Shop there.) ‘You were supposed to not have any animals. I think we had a cat.’ They’re both laughing now. That break helped them keep sailing


505s, at a very high level. ‘Going to world championships – we absolutely could not afford that.’ They even ordered a new Lindsay 505 from the top builder in the class (Sally’s ex-husband). ‘We were spend- ing everything on the boat and travel.’ By now Stan was also navigating profes-


sionally, thanks to Stanford’s flexibility. ‘They wouldn’t pay me but they would give me the time off, as long as my projects were on schedule; so I was going to work


my tail off. But that worked out well for them too.’ ‘And you worked every night until


midnight!’ Sally adds. One of those navigation clients was


Nolan Bushnell, inventor of the video game Pong. ‘Total wingnut, but a genius – a wonderful guy,’ Stan remembers. ‘He had a new Maxi built to be first to


finish in the Transpac, which we succeeded at in 1983. Nolan was really only interested in consumer markets, but he had a real insight into technology.’ When Bushnell asked Stan to dream up a future consumer product Stan proposed vehicle navigation – and then described how he would cross-cor- relate between the road network and a car’s sensors, to improve accuracy. Nolan offered to fund a start-up, which became ETAK. ‘And so we developed the first vehicle navi- gation system that used map-matching.’ ‘And all dead reckoning, just like on a


boat,’ Sally puts in. ETAK sold licences to all the major car


makers and automotive electronic manu- facturers. That attracted Rupert Murdoch 


SEAHORSE 61


YANN RIOU


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