Eight Bells — Sailor Ted Turner Passes at Age 87
We have great memories of the swashbuckling, larger-than-life character Ted Turner, who left his mark on sailing and so many other aspects of our lives. Turner Enterprises announced that the philanthropist and environmentalist died peacefully this morning, surrounded by his family.
We remember hearing him speak at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT, in the early ’70s, his winning the America’s Cup with Gary Jobson as tactician aboard Courageous in 1977, and his winning the tragic 1979 Fastnet race aboard Tenacious.
Yes, he went on to just a few other noteworthy things in life, but it’s the sailor we remember most. The rest of his “Time’s-1991-Man-of-the-Year” life has been and will be written elsewhere.
So, without writing all the stories of his epic life, we wanted to ask Latitude 38 readers, “What are your memories of the sailor, Ted Turner?” The America’s Cup? Courageous? Tenacious? Anything else?
Share your memories in our comments below.
Ted passed out drunk underneath dinner table at Newport R.I.Cup Victory dinner w/ Courageous crew..Epic
Turner had great compassion for the society ladies he met in Newport, Rhode Island who suffered from a lack of intimacy. He offered to help them.
Newport Rhode Island, 1976 Bermuda Race Week. Tenacious was moored near the Black Pearl just across from us at The Moorings. When she came in I helped tie her off and remember remember being impressed with his boat handling skills in very close quarters. He was the real deal.
I remember meeting him at a party after his disastrous loss in the qualifying round of an earlier cup race when he was skipper of Mariner, an aluminum 12. His comment was that the boat was the most “expensive Budweiser beer can I’d ever seen”!
Poignant moment as we docked Imp at the Plymouth docks after the 79 Fastnet, put the boat away and took our exhausted bodies up the hill to the inn, Ted emerged at my side and walked up with me and into the bar and bought me a pint with his and tugged on his stubble cigar. No words just mutual respect for weathering the storm. Tenacious won, but he didn’t count us out. A friend to many of us on Imp. Tremendous human being