Sidelines
ON weekends David Brown is a sailor. He takes to the sea, leaving behind the stress and strife of the workday, skippering his 40-foot Hoonanea for 25,000 nautical miles and counting. Out in the wind and the sun and the swells, the office isn't even a memory. Sailing crew smiling
at Asahi successIt wasn't planned, this unusual, wonderful team he's got.
Today, he and his Team Constellation teammates open the Asahi Super Cup as defending Performance Handicap 2 champions. Today, they begin a series of yacht races off Waikiki. Today, the racing dentists take flight again.
A sheer coincidence, he says. He'd chartered out the Hoonanea to race in last year's goodwill regatta, sailing for a team from Japan. Standard practice in the Asahi Super Cup, where local skippers and boats are often mixed with teams from Japan for the festivities. But then Brown and his crew got to talking.
You guys are dentists?
I'm a dentist!
"They came to visit my office and take some pictures and that kind of stuff," said Brown, a D.D.S. who practices in Kahaluu. It was cool. On the Hoonanea, four out of five dentists ... were from Japan.
But no talk about tooth decay, or what brand of sugarless gum they would recommend, if surveyed. It was time to put the office behind them. It was time to sail.
Sailing is a team sport that demands precision and finesse, and the gang went to it. The winds were higher, much higher, than the Japanese crew members were used to in their races on Tokyo Bay. It was thrilling. Brown and company went with the theme of safety first, and then having a good time. They just wanted to keep everybody on the boat.
But then they won. And they won. And they won.
"There are different levels of competition, certainly," Brown said. "We're in it for the fun level." But at the fun level, he and the other dentists of the Hoonanea went for it. And they ended up champions.
This year the crew is back. Brown was to see them again for the first time last night. There may be a new face here or there. Perhaps a tweak or two. He wasn't sure yet. But most of his guys should be there.
"I don't think they went out there to find more dentists," the skipper joked.
He was looking forward to getting together with his old crew, his new friends. The Asahi Super Cup promotes international goodwill through sailing, Brown said. In his case, it worked. With just a few days together in 2000, the team headlined by a group of international oral hygiene professionals bonded beautifully, then won.
"It was a wonderful experience for me last year," Brown said.
The guys have invited him to come to Japan to visit and sail. He'll do it, he said. He showed them Hawaii's waters. Now they want to return the favor. "It's just a question of when we can work it out," Brown said.
But first there's this one little thing of five races over three days, today, Saturday, Sunday.
Good luck, sailing dentists.
Drill 'em.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com