It was on the water where Colie’s advice was more pointed: “Ease for a lift, then tell me you are eased. “Now when he sees me out of shape he says, `Didn’t you used to be Peter Commette?’”Īsked to provide tips in the Penguin Class Yearbook of 1956, Colie politely covered the dinghy essentials: “Sail with a minimum of rudder….sail the boat flat upwind, heeled slightly to windward downwind….gently sail through tacks with a light hand on the helm….practice sailing without a rudder…keep as still in the boat as possible….” “The Holy Grail back then was an opportunity to crew for Colie,” says Peter Commette, a Barnegat Bay Olympian (Finn) in the 1980s. Words like “inspiring”, “entertaining,” and “dedicated” are used by those fortunate enough to have been his students. Colie was also a natural teacher of the sport. “He had a sixth sense of how to make a boat go fast all the time,” Melges says. A three-time winning skipper in the College Nationals for MIT, he was later elected to the ICYRA Hall of Fame. He won two Barnegat Bay Championships in the classic Sneakboxes in the 1930s.
was among those Colie beat in the trials.Ĭolie started young, crewing for his mother. had designed for heavy air that Chance’s father had rejected. It was a light air series, and Colie was sailing a boat Britton Chance Jr.
Two years before that, Colie had gotten into a 5.5-Metre and lost to George O’Day in the Olympic trials by one point.
After placing second in 19 at the E Scow Nationals, he won the regatta in 1966 – the first Easterner to do so. Upwind, you wet the rail, get the bilge board vertical, and `fly a hull.’ He was a damn good helmsman and a damn good tactician.” Proof is Colie’s seven Eastern E-Scow Championships. That technique made him perfect for scows, where the angle of heel is critical because a scow is really a catamaran in a monohull’s body. “Runnie sailed close to the wind and went faster than anyone else. “He wasn’t a footer,” says Buddy Melges, who knows a thing or two about sailing scows (eight championships in E and A Scows). Colie won seven international titles between 19 in the Penguin, the hottest dinghy class at the time.Ĭolie was also sailing E-Scows on Barnegat Bay. “I dreamed of beating him but it never happened.” Conner wasn’t the only one who failed. “Runnie Colie was already a legend in the class,” Conner says. Dennis Conner says his first boat was a Penguin.
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