The King Neptune Yacht Club gathered for an end-of-the-season dinner meeting on Friday, Nov. 20 at King Neptune restaurant after a summer of sailing in Wrightsville Beach, Lake Norman, Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga.
Commodore Patterson Carroll welcomed fellow members and special guest speakers Hill Goodman and Martha Fisher.
Goodman inspired the young sailors with anecdotes from his illustrious career as a professional sailor, saying he saved $800 to buy his first boat, an old wooden Lightning, at age 14. As a young adult, he moved from Jacksonville, Fl. to Annapolis, Md. where he taught sailing by day and worked at McGarvey’s Saloon by night.
From Annapolis, Goodman sailed a 39-foot Ericson to the Bahamas and later a 50-foot Gulfstar up the East Coast. In Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. where he was asked to join the crew of The Wyntje, Walter Cronkite’s 64-foot Hinckley. Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, her daughter, Lynda Robb, her husband Governor Charles Robb and the Secret Service were onboard during Goodman’s first voyage aboard The Wyntje.
He became the vessel’s captain in 1984 and served in that position for two years. During that time, he brought the boat to Wrightsville Beach and weighed anchor working first at Wrightsville Marina and then at Bald Head Island from 1986 to 1999. Along with President Obama and President Clinton, Goodman attended Cronkite’s memorial service in September.
Goodman said he was encouraged to see so many young sailors at the meeting. He told them that sailing opened up a lot of opportunities for him to work and travel.
"The yacht club dock is the diving board for the rest of the world," Goodman said.
Fisher, who came to Wrightsville Beach two years ago to coach the King Neptune Yacht Club, just returned from the Rolex U.S. Women’s Match Race Championship in St. Thomas where her team was one of eight to compete for the national title. They finished in seventh place she said mostly because they did not have enough time to practice on an unfamiliar boat.
Fisher is no stranger to high stakes racing events, however, having sailed in the Junior Lightning World Championship in Sao Paolo, Brazil, when she was a high school senior. She qualified a second time for the worlds and traveled to Greece to compete.
"One of my favorite images is sailing a down-wind leg with the Parthenon in the background," she told the group.
She said her friend base expanded across the world.
"Sailing with the international crowd," she said, "was fun to duke it out in the water and laugh about it afterward."
