Waikiki Yacht Club - Olympic Medals

One of the highlights of our trophy collection are the Two silver Olympic medals displayed with ceremonial chain necklace and mounted in a glass presentation frame.

Members David McFaull with crew Michael Rothwell became Hawaii’s first Olympic sailing medalists when they won silver medals at the 1976 Montréal Summer Olympic Games in the Tornado Class Catamarans. The sailing venue was Kingston Ontario. The WYC team scored 36 total points. Gold went to United Kingdom with Reg White and John Osborn with 18 points. Bronze went to West Germany with Jörg Spenger and Jörg Schmall with 37.7 points.

They sailed McFaull’s boat Zomby Woof and raced seven times in nine days, with one 22-mile race daily.

The medals culminated years of strenuous training for both men. McFaull, a Punahou graduate, learned to sail at the Waikiki Yacht Club. He gained intercollegiate sailing experience at Cornell, then returned home and worked as a disc jockey at KUMU Radio while training for the Olympics.

Rothwell had just finished High School and was working at the Territorial Tavern where he put up WYC Tornado Worlds posters. Mike then went to work for member Bob Hall at his airfreight company and Bob gave him the time off needed to prepare and compete. The team would go out after work a few days a week and tack and gybe every 15 seconds for an hour each day to make the mechanics a second nature. “Dave was adamant that Mike hike on his tiptoes.” If he did not they did it again until Mike was as far out on the trap as is humanly possible.

The team placed 3^rd in the 1974 Worlds at the Waikiki Yacht Club, then 12^th at the 1975 worlds in Australia. They won the US Sailing trials in 1976 at Watertown NY. They sailed their brand new Tornado from Watertown NY to Kingston Ontario where they were stopped, detained and finally let in. (This was just after the Munich Olympics where security was at its highest level.)

Waikiki Yacht Club • 1599 Ala Moana Blvd • Honolulu, HI 96814

phone: 808•955•4405
fax: 808•941•5026
email: wyc@waikikiyachtclub.com