How a One-Design Fleet Became a Family
Whenever Randall Rasicot called out a maneuver, I would jump.
“Vang!”
“Starboard twing to lifeline!”
Even now, hearing the skipper who taught me how to race, I automatically leap into action.
“An inch to the right!”
“Watch the doorjamb!”
Today, we aren’t sailing. The crew from J/24 Flight is moving a giant wooden sculpture, 8 feet across and weighing as much as a piano, through the threshold of Rasicot’s new house. It’s one of three times this summer that the J/24 fleet has helped each other move.
“With the J/24s, it’s kind of insane. We’ve all become family. We go to each other’s birthdays, each other’s weddings, everybody’s helping each other move,” says Jasper Van Vliet, skipper of Evil Octopus. “That has very little to do with sailing sometimes.”
Emmy Duckworth raced Thistles for years, but here in the Bay Area? “I started sailing with J/24s, and within a day it was like I’d been there the entire time.”
“For me, it’s always been about the fleet,” Ellie Tubman says. “Sailing is more about being with people and chatting on the boat and figuring out something together. It’s teamwork at the end of the day.”
Carrying a heavy dresser up a flight of stairs and playing real-life Tetris around a tight corner with your tactician may not be how most crews practice for a regatta. This land-based teamwork with San Francisco Bay J/24 Fleet 17 sets it apart as something far beyond just a one-design class. It’s just an extension of what crew means.
