A few days ago I wrote in North Rocks about how North Sails had recognized my astonishing victory in the Lake Whippersnapper Galactic Laser Championships last year by sending me a very snazzy Racer Hat, but had not chosen to list my amazing feat on their Victory List website along with the winners of less well known events such as Key West Race Week, the 12 Meter North Americans and the Newport-Bermuda Race.
I indulged in a bit of whining accusing North of discrimination against small boat sailors. Hey, I won that regatta with a North Sails sail even if I wasn't allowed to buy it directly from them, because of the byzantine organization of the Laser sails supply chain.
But now I feel bad for rubbishing North Sails because today I received a very nice email from a lady in the North Sails Marketing Department congratulating me on my "sailing success during 2008" and announcing that they have now added my name to the Victory List.
And so they have. Woo hoo. I made the list.
7 comments:
Hey, don't be so quick to apologize to the lumbering, entropic corporate behemoth. We watched this unfold. If this were an incident at sea, that lumbering container ship of a corporate bureaucracy would have run over your single-handed, Lake Whippersnapper conquering self quicker than you can drop your daggerboard and change course.
Congrats, TM! I found your name on the list, and I noticed that the 'Get your free hat!' link next to your name is still active. I clicked on it and got the form to complete for the free hat. Do you think that if we, your cheering section, completed the form... we'd get a free hat too?!
Ahem, funny you should mention that, Christy. I had the same series of events unfold on my computer screen, as you describe. I went ahead and submitted myself as the first place winner in the Willamette River Winter Invitational, DR-1 Class.
I have to say, I'm wrestling with this sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, I would really like the hat, it would keep the sun off my face, when it shines occasionally and it has real sailor stuff on it, instead of a baseball team or something. However, on the other hand, I fear it may cheapen the whole experience for those real sailors out there who won more prestigious, and, well, more competitive races than my 'race.'
Christy - the Get Your Free Hat links besides each name all lead to the same form which can be used, as far as I can see, for people named on the list to claim their hats and for folk not on the list to request to be added (and to claim their hats).
Greg, I do encourage anyone who came in the top 3 in a regatta using a North sail last year to get on the list and to claim their hats. This includes all Sunfish sailors and practically all Laser sailors.
Top three, eh?
Let's see, Mr. Breezetrees won the Blogger division of the Three Bridge Fiasco. The internationally acclaimed Valis took second. But who was it who took third? Some blogless wretch, destined to eternally roam the comments pages of other people's blogs, seeking shelter where he can find it in borrowed bandwidth, in purloined pixels, in peripheral parts of proper posts.
But has he not the same right to a hat as any other bogus pretender?
If some Wobegon warbler or Oregonian overturnee can rise through the ranks on creaky credentials, then justice shall be mine!
hot dang, Dr. O! That there's like a pohyem.
Wooohooooo Smashing!
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