Luke Scott

Keith is widely and very well loved by so many…

As much as I could tell you of his delight for music, and how he has brought music into this club; as much as I could tell you how he adored his own three children, and indeed their partners, and how he looked forward to his special chats with each one of them; as much as he doted on all of his seven grandchildren and was deeply interested of their progress and welfare; as much as he was in awe of his wife Ruth's intellect and love, and guarded the special time he had with her in the years that I have known him; even as much as he loved our club, and his patronage of it is certainly the stuff of legend, there are many others here who can tell you of all of these with greater knowledge and deeper insight, so I will stick to the territory I am charged with in this club, whether I know anything aboat it or not.

So…Captain Harry Dolos and sailing at Royal Cape. If you don’t know the origin of the name, ask any number of people over a beer here tonight. However, technically speaking, we believe it may be more correct to refer to Keith as Captain Cubic, and he was referred to as Captain Chaos when he played with the Royal Cape Rockers in the last few years.

Keith was first and foremost a participator, and you could expect his entry in …well everything! This attitude and expectation makes organizing club sailing so much easier. Look at the results over the years, FTI is typically always on the water.

Together with his very loyal crew, there is no doubt they sail to be competitive, but far greater than that, they just sail. They sail fair, and they certainly have shown that they can sail competitively, especially in the last year, after the hull overhaul and the fixing of the crooked rudder.

Keith introduced so many people to sailing, often combining with family, friends and colleagues from his other interests in life. I can assure you that you could assemble a fine marching band or classical music ensemble from the regular crew of FTI Flyer alone, and on that point, I would like to acknowledge how beautiful the Jules Massenet meditation piece was at the service on Monday, played by foredeck Petri Salonen on violin and his wife Bridget on flute, and William Whittaker on organ. What a beautiful gift to Keith: sailors playing fine music, or fine musicians indulging in his passion of sailing!?

Keith introduced many of his crew as members of this club, and literally home-schooled some of them to their skippers tickets in recent years.

Keith was also a great contributor to race management, and was happy to act as race officer or bridge crew whenever his yacht was not sailing, which in fact was not very often! Examples of this were the youth regattas held at last year and the year before, and I vividly recall the faces of three cold old men: Keith, Ron & Ray rocking out on Butt Cat in foul bumpy weather all day long delivering excellent racing for the kids in the 2012 Youth Regatta. What champions!

While his yacht was being prepared for the most recent Rio Race, which included an extensive overhaul of hull, engine and rudder, Keith gave his time generously to bridgework, and it may have been mentioned that he was a national race officer, although he was elusive on the finer details here!

Including Robben Island and Barkers Rock, we typically should have 15 permanent marks to choose from across Table Bay when setting standard club courses, without laying any additional temporary inflatable marks.

Anyway, Keith took delight in setting a course for a club race last year, and with that hallmark naughty smile and sparkle in his eye, he ran the course past me just before the race. His course was:

Start: BH#10s;#4p:#10p;#4p:#10p;#4p:#10p;#4p:#10p...

I rolled my eyes and said: “Keith! We are going to have to watch you!”

But you know what? Keith even defended his course, offering two strong attributes: firstly, it could easily be shortened, and secondly, all yachts in the fleet should continue sailing the course until a given time, at which point everybody finishes and you take average speed over the course together with handicap and establish the placings. There was sound logic, as the whole fleet would have sailed in the same conditions for the same length of time - time was the determining factor, not course length and varying weather around the course.

Keith was always very supportive and had loads of ideas for club sailing and ratings, and he was good at communicating these regularly, either verbally in the bar, or in writing to the sailing office. His input to the sailing committee was always positive, constructive, polite and always with a clear point [needless to say it was often quite leftfield!]: the sailing committee respected his voice and intent, and have often incorporated his input. One such input was abolishing cut off times – maybe that was so that FTI Flyer (and us) could score finishes for every race they entered! Again there's sound logic: Surely the point of starting every race is to finish it, and not succumb simply because the bridge has gone home?

Keith was also very generous and vocal in supporting me personally - I cannot tell you how many times he made a point of thanking and congratulating me for whatever he felt was appropriate...I will remember that well. I felt Keith had a way of being fatherly, yet still just your friend simultaneously. He made one feel good. While there was room for difference, there was mostly consensus.

Having sailed in the same part of the fleet and with similarly handicapped yachts until relatively recently, I know how much fun it is to sail with and against Keith. One of the fun ideas we had, but did not yet try out, was to completely swap crews on both yachts and race against each other on each other’s yachts!

When his yacht was being redone last year, he asked my advice on the branding and artwork. I proudly presented a mock up ignoring and omitting all artwork on the stern or sides of the hull, and rather opted for large signs on the bow, which I explained was so we could see them better on the race course. Without missing a beat, Keith responded by saying they would only be placing one sign, and it would be on the stern, but he said it would not matter the size of the sign, because it would always look small to us!

And even since our crew have moved on to the Simonis 35 revival, Keith has often said to me (even in the last fortnight) "Oh bugger, I wish I'd known you guys were going to buy that yacht, and I would have done the same and come sailing with you". We had a great and spirited rivalry, Keith… We were equally happy to pip you, or to share your joy when positions between us were reversed. I think the feeling was mutual. I shall miss howling to my crew..."Oh look they've done 'a Keith'", whenever we achieved a small and precious advantage over FTI Flyer - more from their small error rather than our sailing prowess. The crew aboard FTI will know what I'm talking about, and have assured me that they will keep Keith's spirit alive as they continue to race her into the future. Talking revival, it seems FTI Flyer has started a Charger 33 revival, with 3 Chargers now sailing regularly in our bay. So typical of your generosity and spirit Keith [and that of your family’s], it is fantastic that your yacht will continue to sail here into the future…

So back to the future: we can look forward to the famous FTI Flyer starting on port routine, to the lone spinnaker hoist at the weather mark in a howling south easter Twilight, to some of the most memorable spinnaker drops ever, to tinned Vienna’s [and only tinned Vienna’s] on offshore passages, to wearing red foul weather jackets no matter the weather, and the inevitable: "oh look, they [or we] have done a Keith!" But most importantly, we can continue to enjoy the memory of the fun, fair and spirited presence of Keith through this yacht and crews' participation in our club's sailing, and also every time we hear live music on the deck on the first Sunday of each month.

What a fine legacy for this club.

Above all of the fun and madness, the revelry, the multiple talents, I would like to finish by acknowledging the incredible bravery and dignity with which Keith tackled his fading condition in the last year. The spirited bravery that saw him and his crew start the Rio Race [incidentally the only yacht to navigate away from and completely avoid the big storm]. That bravery that saw him achieve a podium finish in his class at the last Mykonos Offshore, a podium finish in the Professionals Race, a visit to HBYC for Admirals Sword Regatta just two months ago, the way he kept coming here to this club to enjoy all of our company, with never a complaint and always something interesting to say, in the true spirit of agape.

Keith even snuck in a sail in his last week...that's the way to go!

Bravo Keith! Bravo!

Over & Oat!