Melges M20

Bill Leonard, one of my SMU professors introduced me to sailing in 1975 on Whiterock Lake in Dallas. I bought a used boat from another advisor (for the SMU intern program) and raced it for two years before discovering it was slow because it was water-logged. I took breaks from writing my dissertation, to re-core the fiberglass hull of this old boat. For six weeks I got covered in fiberglass powder while I laid in a new foam core. I received a PhD in EE and finished the boat about the same time. The boat was stiff but still heavy from too much fiber glass probably. In 1980 after joining the semiconductor research lab at Texas Instruments, I ordered a new M20 from the Melges boat works in Zenda Wi. We drove to Wisconsin and spent a couple of days with Olympic medal winner, 3 time Mallory cup winner, 2 time Star World champion, and future America's cup competitor, Buddy Melges. His house on the lake was a vitual boat club with various Megles hulls for the summer and ice boats for the winter. From Zenda, we trailered the boat to Madison, to compete in the M20 Nationals regatta. More about that later.