We are in San Diego racing in the International Masters Regatta with a contingent from 1977 when we received a telephone call with the news.
\nEight Bells for Stretch Ryder<\/p>\n
We are very sad to report from\u00a0Port Washington,\u00a0New York, the passing of a wonderful friend and sailor- Gould “Stretch” Ryder.\u00a0 Stretch is best known as the winch grinder for Ted Turner aboard Courageous for the 1977 Americas Cup defense against\u00a0Australia\u00a0(one).
\nStretch fought cancer for the past ten months and leaves behind wife Gerry, sons Michael and Christopher, and many family and friends.
\nOver the past few weeks Stretch received visitors and calls from all over the country. Every member of the Courageous crew called or visited Stretch. A highlight was last Friday’s visit by half the crew of Courageous, flying in from\u00a0Montana\u00a0with Ted Turner on his jet.\u00a0 Ted, Gary Jobson (tactician), Bill Jorch (navigator) and John “LJ” Edgcomb (bow) exchanged hysterical stories (mostly true) about the 1977 Cup.
\nStretch was his communicating and humorous self up to the end.\u00a0Stretch grew up sailing and playing football and basketball.\u00a0 Winning the Bacardi Cup racing a Star with Frank Zagarino was a major sailing highlight. At\u00a0AlfredUniversity\u00a0he was a tight end.\u00a0 While serving in the Army, Stretch coached football and flew helicopters in\u00a0Southeast Asia.\u00a0\u00a0 Since 1982 Stretch worked with John Thomson, running marinas, the famous “Barge” Restaurant, and Ventura Aviation.\u00a0 He raced for decades on John’s famous series of ocean racers and Farr 40s named “Infinity”.\u00a0 Stretch has been a longtime member of the Storm Trysail Club.
\nThere will be a celebration for Stretch at the\u00a0<\/b>Manhasset<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Bay<\/b>\u00a0Yacht Club at\u00a0<\/b>2 pm<\/b>\u00a0next Friday afternoon November 1.\u00a0 All his friends are invited.
\n<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are in San Diego racing in the International Masters Regatta with a contingent from 1977 when we received a telephone call with the news. Eight Bells for Stretch Ryder We are very sad to report from\u00a0Port Washington,\u00a0New York, the passing of a wonderful friend and sailor- Gould “Stretch” Ryder.\u00a0 Stretch is best known as … Continue reading GOODBY STRETCH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431,40,61,434,429],"tags":[1866],"class_list":["post-7442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-meter-era-reunion","category-americas-cup","category-courageous","category-jeff-neuberth","category-ted-turner","tag-stretch-ryder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7443,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions\/7443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}