Eric Heim, sailmaker and Snipe sailor from San Diego

- 1) Your first time on a sailing boat?

On a boat: At a few weeks old, my mom took me on the Race Committee boat (40 ft Catamaran) for the Freestyle 474 Nationals that my dad was sailing. First time sailing: probably tied to the mast of my moms windsurfer ;)

- 2) Your first time on a Snipe?

A friend was leaving California and selling his Snipe. The price went down $100 every week. I waited until 2 days before he left and got his Phoenix (Mud Flap Girl) from him for $700. It was probably 1998 or so. First regatta was in Alamitos Bay. My good friend Nathan crewed for me because I thought it may be windy. The boat broke a lot and we probably only finished 2 races, well behind. The next regatta was Mission Bay, and that is when I first met George Szabo. He helped me set the rig up properly even though I had Ullman Sails (who I worked for at the time, and did not tell him).

- 3) The most bizarre thing that happened in a regatta?

We sailed the J-24 North Americans in San Francisco. Broke the rudder on Day 1, so packed up and went home. We ordered a new rudder and it arrived. Fitted it, then went to Santa Barbara for the next regatta. We started to put the mast up, but could not figure out what was wrong with the tuning. We kept turning the turnbuckles, but could not get any tension on the gauge. Went below to make sure the butt was on the right spot and noticed that the deck was about 1" away from the main bulkhead! Decided that it would be light air and the boat was insured, so we raced the series anyways. We were so fast in under 7 knots that we almost won the regatta! We learned from this and changed our light air tuning for the future with good success.