Eight Bells: Carl Eichenlaub

The Snipe family lost another great one this morning. Former snipe builder and champion skipper Carl Eichenlaub passed away early this morning. Some of you may remember his advertising slogan from his boat building days “Any slob can win in an Eichenlaub”.

Carl Eichenlaub passed away early this morning, November 29, 2013, at 83 years. In a sport full of iconic figures, he stands with the best and most unique. Few people in the sport have the breadth and depth of his talent.

A story by Peter Commette:

In Kingston in 1976 at the Olympics, not only did Carl seal up my Finn mast from the inside out using radiator stop leak, but after my mast became the first non-new mast to pass the old Finn mast immersion test, Carl fixed the rest of my competitors’ masts, too. Kingston ran out of the stuff!

He was our boatwright in ’91 in the Cuba Pan-Am Games. Same thing. As soon as he’d finish our boats, he’d go to work on a waiting line of other sailors’ boats. Soviet, Cuban, or just another competitor – never crossed his mind to matter.

In Kingston, they supplied us with these God-awful, beastly Finns and would not allow us to even touch the hiking pads. All competitors were forced to use these boats. The bottoms were terrible and, at the very least were in sore need of a sanding, but sanding was expressly forbidden. Carl looked at me and said, “No matter. Rules don’t say anything about a chisel. You can do anything with a sharp chisel.” For hours, he kept sighting the bottom and working his chisel, muttering his “you can do anything with a sharp chisel” mantra. When he finished, the bottom looked gorgeous.

Mark Reynolds organized a bunch of stories and info about Carl. Check them out

Sailingscuttlebutt