John Pemberton violated the unofficial rule of "the skipper never ever messes with anything having to do with rigging the spinnaker," with spectacular results. While the crew was rigging the boat, he was not satisfied with the performance of his crew in this endeavor for the 2008 Spring Regatta. Since the poor crew were not moving with sufficient speed for “Capt. Bligh,” he took it upon himself to rig the spin. In his haste to splash the boat he tied the spinnaker sideways. Once, on the water and headed up to the course, the crew considered setting the spinnaker as a practice run before the first race of the day,  particularly because the boat had not sailed together as a crew and had not practiced routines. John decided that they were sufficiently skilled that it wasn't necessary. Consequently, they had no idea that the spin was rigged incorrectly prior to the first race set.

 He will now and forever more be known as “Captain Sideways.”

2007

Jeff Storck
 For somehow managing to wrap his spinnaker sheet around the windward mark during a mark rounding at the Leukemia Cup….and for promptly yelling “thanks a lot you guys!” at Pat (who rounded behind and between Jeff and the mark) thinking that the snafu must have been Pat’s fault…and all Pat was trying to do was figure out what a rogue spinnaker sheet was doing lassoed around the mark and stretched over to Jeff’s boat while it was catching all over his rig and rudder, and at the same time still being hollered at by Jeff…until he finally got loose and on with his downwind leg shouting back to Jeff  “do your turns man!”….at which point Jeff figured that might be a good idea and got us turned around so we could figure out how to get the wayward sheet undone from the mark without mucking things up too badly for other boats rounding the mark….and then do our penalty turns as quickly as possible…so after spending about a week at the windward mark trying to get our turns done, we managed to finally get on our way downwind….and had a few hardy laughs (and probably handed Jeff a beer) as he said “now THAT was a Bungle Bucket nomination if I ever did see one!” 

2002

Drew Hudson and crew.  On the day before the Leukemia/presidents Cup Drew Sousan and Tony Vernon were practicing spinnaker raisings and takedowns. They were using the red day mark in the cove.  In rounding the day mark while raising the spinnaker, it snagged the mark.  Since the spinnaker lines had knots at the end, they couldn’t be released, in effect hog-tying the boat.  This happened before an audience.  Gary Jobson was presenting a seminar on racing on the lawn looking toward the cove.  He remarked drolly, “they’re going to need help.”

But Drew had competition.  In front of a limited audience Jeff Storck was sailing above the starting line last Fall in a PRSA race, with about 2 minutes before the Lightning start.  He made an agile jibe but came too close to the committee boat snagging its anchor line.  The winds were enough to push his boat against the committee boat.  “Raise the centerboard and drop the sails.”  But it wasn’t enough.  String Theory’s stern was swinging toward the side of the committee boat.  It looked to the stunned race committed (Lightning sailors trying to fend String Theory off) like another rudder was about to be splintered.  With a few seconds to spare the rudder was removed and while the crew paddled furiously, the boat broke free.  The skipper opted for a safe start, and still managed a second place finish in that race.