in 1976, cayman islands' young sailors were at sea on lake ontario in tiny nation's olympic debut
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gerry kirkconnell works on the cayman islands 470 in a photo taken in portsmouth harbour appearing in the july 10, 1876 edition of the whig-standard., (from the kingston whig-standard archive)
back in the summer of 1976, the yachting world was coming to kingston for the olympic regatta. by the start of the games in the third week of july, 257 sailors from 40 nations would check into the olympic village set up at queen’s university and the residence would be further crowded by an uncounted complement of coaches, reserves and team staffers.
but on the night of june 21, officials opened the residence to those who’d arrive in advance for practice sessions to take their measure of the waters and winds. four sailors showed up, but only two had the paperwork necessary to check in.
first at the door were the guatemalans: jorge springmühl and juan maegl, a pair of 18-year-olds entered in the 470 class. they were the unlucky ones turned away at the security desk and had to find a hotel for the night.
next came the cayman islands team: peter milburn and gerry kirkconnell. they were neophytes in the sailing’s elite ranks and trailblazers as the first olympians in any category to represent the caribbean nation comprising three islands with a population 15,000. but they did have their papers in order.
thus, on the first night in the olympic village, milburn and kirkconnell dined alone in a hall with a seating capacity of 350 at one time, unsettling for milburn who was 31 and kirkconnell, barely 18.
“our experience at the olympics was surreal,” kirkconnell said when recently contacted by the whig-standard.
transcendent and inspiring athletes have their famous moments at an olympic games, but they are eclipsed in their numbers by a legion of the quirky and quixotic. in kingston back in ’76, the cayman islanders were as unlikely as any citizens of the athletes village.
veteran sailors had spent years, even decades, focused on qualifying for and racing in the games, gaining experience on the international circuits, in age-group championships, then in regional regattas. the best of them came to kingston the previous summer for the pre-olympic regatta. the cayman islanders had virtually no run-up.
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“we only found out four months before the games that we’d be going,” said kirkconnell, who was a legacy, his father gaining fame as a sailor in the caymans. “we had success racing at the club level in other (classes of) boats and the 470s were the closest to what we were used to. we came to kingston with a boat that we bought that spring.”
and they were a two-man team, no need for a third seat at their table in the dining hall that night, though another young cayman sailor, carson ebanks, would join them just before the first race, with milburn dropping to a reserve role. “it turned out peter was too heavy for the 470, so they called me,” ebanks said. “gerry and i had sailed together in sea scouts going back to 1971.”
the teammates would have to improvise in their first competition outside the caribbean. “we didn’t have a coach with us,” kirkconnell said. “a coach would have really helped us.”
with portsmouth harbour soon crowded with past olympic medalists, kirkconnell tried an immersive approach to gather intel and acquire knowledge. he focused on rodney pattison, a two-time gold medalist at the helm of great britain’s flying dutchman entry. “i pitched in, derigging his boat,” kirkconnell said. “rodney was very open to helping out a young sailor.”
ebanks arrived too late to march in the opening ceremonies in montreal, but kirkconnell and milburn did and were overwhelmed when met by the roar of 73,000 at olympic stadium. “out on the track as we walked around, you realize just how big the games are,” kirkconnell said.
the opening ceremonies for the olympic regatta the next day in portsmouth were quaint by comparison. “everybody in kingston was very friendly,” kirkconnell said. “there was just a great spirit in the athletes’ village.”
“the queen’s student that had our room before left behind one book,” ebanks said. “leonard cohen’s beautiful losers. i didn’t know how to take it.”
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after finished last in the field of 28 boats on the opening day, the cayman islanders made incremental progress towards relative beauty, improving five places for a 23rd-place finish in the second race, five more the 18th in the third. “we were holding our own,” kirkconnell said. “in one of the races, we got as far up as fifth place but then dropped back.”
the fourth race, the midway point of the seven-stage competition, proved to be a breaking point.
“we were black-flagged at the starting line,” he said. “it went down as a premature start, but it was a matter of our not being aware of the international rules — if you were over the line five minutes before the race, you were disqualified. just one thing where having some coaching would have really helped.”
momentarily demoralized with a last-place score and penalty point, the cayman islanders bounced back with another 18th-place finish in the fifth race, but the die was cast. now it was just a pursuit of respectability.
they were 25th across the line in the penultimate race, leaving them in 26th place overall — in the finale, they could target bettering their 18th-place finishes to move up the table, credible considering just five months before they thought they’d be hearing olympic results on the radio.
disaster struck in the last race. they capsized. water-logged, dispirited, ebanks and kirkconnell headed to shore, their olympics over. “i wanted to finish, but gerry didn’t,” ebanks said.
the dnf dropped them to dead last in the standings, one point behind the greek boat and four points behind the guatemalans.
“it was disappointing,” kirkconnell said. “our government issued a stamp to celebrate the team being in the games. i just wished we had done better.”
the sting eased when they returned to the caymans and the sailors refocused.
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“i came away from kingston thinking i wanted to get back to the olympics in moscow in ’80,” kirkconnell said. ”in 1977 and ’78 we raced, but the cayman islands joined the boycott (of the 1980 games), so that was it for me. i’d started a family — i didn’t have the time.”
kirkconnell built a successful jewelry business in the caymans and visited olympic games as a guest of corporate sponsors. “i went to beijing in 2008 and london in 2016, but i never made it to the sailing venues,” he said.
ebanks was able to continue to sailing internationally while establishing himself in the civil service and served as crew for a cayman boat in the 1984 olympics, alas with a more or less identical outcome, 28th in the final standings in a 28-boat field.
the cayman islands team did land in the news cycle in kingston, but not of their own making. on july 22, 1976, the whig-standard headline read: “gift from the cayman islands, sailors dine on turtle burgers.” according to sylvia wright’s report, “400 pounds of prime turtle steak was flown to kingston as a donation to the nightly barbecue from the cayman islands sailing team.” the story was accompanied by a photo a russian sailor biting into a turtle burger.
wjhig-strandard reporter sylvia wright writes about the serving of cayman islands turtle meat in the olympic village in july 1976. gerry kirkconnell, a member of the island nation’s 470 team, denies any involvement in what he describes as a marketing scheme. (from the kingston whig-standard’s archive)
given that five species of the turtles populate in kingston’s marshes, the delivery of their caribbean cousins would prompt the hackneyed line about shipping coal to newcastle.
kirkconnell cringed at the mention of the novelty item from ’76. first, he suggested farm-raised turtles from the cayman islands are an entirely different kettle of reptiles than any northern testudines, with those in the wild protected by more than road signage and bumper stickers. he also emphasized that neither the sailors were involved in the “donation.”
“the man behind the turtle meat had an idea about starting up a business selling the meat in the market,” kirkconnell said. “he thought the cayman team was an opportunity to promote it.”
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and while the whig-standard report swallowed the promoter’s line whole, it would have struck cayman islanders as bogus. “he used it to make burgers, but cayman islanders use turtle meat strictly in stews,” kirkconnell said.
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newspapers provide the first draft of history, but not always a story in full. often events go unseen at the time, or their effects truly unfold years and even decades after.
to mark the 50th anniversary of kingston’s hosting the olympic regatta, the whig-standard is publishing a series of features about sailors whose stories only started with their pursuit of medals on lake ontario. in the first instalment, the lim brothers were denied an opportunity to race on the eve of the games, but improbably became national heroes in taiwan, a country they had never even visited. in tomorrow’s whig-standard, the tempest competition is the focus: a swedish duo’s mystical run, taking down sailing legends from the u.s. and soviet union.
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