Seems like this message string could grow into the hundreds if not the thousands. Since it is Rick's website, it also seems like it should be one of the best ways to honor his memory. So here is a story involving Rick and Mary to get this started. Without looking up the year, I would guess this was in the 1984 Sandusky Steeplechase race that Carol and I raced our Hobie 18 with a masthead rigged mylar screecher. I made this while working part time for a local sailmaker and Mylar was new. I had kept this set-up under wraps and this was its debut; meanwhile Rick had the same mindset for his symmetrical spinnaker rigged Hobie 18 that he also was debuting in this race. We saw what each other was up to as we launched and sailed out to the starting area and ended up match racing each other since we both pulled quickly ahead of all the conventionally rigged boats in the light to medium air. We were a little faster sailing but WAY faster jibing since Mary had to jibe the quite long pole which was not easy and they had to sail pretty deep because of the big shoulders on the kite. (I think it was borrowed from a Thistle). We were so intent on each other that when it got foggy we sailed almost directly to Kelly's island (no GPS in those old-timey days!) and then had to head up too high to carry the headsails when we heard the water crashing on the rocky shore nearby. I was covering from in front and sailing only to match Rick jibe for jibe. We had sailed each other far enough from the course rhumb line that the other boats passed us and finished ahead but neither one of us cared. We just wanted to beat each other to show that our new idea was better than the other's (neither of us had ever seen a headsail on a beach cat in NA before that). It was not so long after that when Rick coined the term "hooter" and began putting screechers on HIS cats and really popularizing headsails on beach cats. To be able to top Rick in any endeavor was a real accomplishment because he was always fast and innovative. He did more for beach cat sailing and racing than any other sailor I have met.