Red, the New Pink

Why the pink shirts, Silver Heel? (Darby Hewes photo)

Most, if not all, log canoes have a team color.  This team color gives programs a sense of identity, makes boats and crew easier to identify, and, in some cases, makes boats look pretty darned good.  The color isn’t plastered everywhere on a boat, but most crew shirts display the boat’s color, certain staysails are tagged with the color, and even some kites are tricked out in similar fashion.

For the great majority of boats, it’s pretty easy to figure out the team color.  Mystery proudly displays their blue on their shirts and staysail, Oliver’s Gift rolls with the green and white rugby stripes, and even when pulling a horizon job, Island Blossom remains visible with their bright yellow staysail.  The colors are just another nifty attribute of the log canoe fleet, adding a bit of style, as it were, to the beauty of the boats.

This season it has come to my attention that there has been some conjecture as to what color shirts the Silver Heel gang sports on the water.  Many have wondered why several of the crew regularly wear pink shirts—could this possibly be the color for the program?  If it is, why do crew who don’t have the regular crew shirt wear red when sailing aboard the heel?  If the Heel proudly rocks pink, why is the “2” high up on the foresail red?  Finally, if the color isn’t pink, then why the pink shirts?

You have questions, and I have answers.

The Silver Heel is not a pink crew.  They are a red crew.  In fact, although personal life experience can’t confirm this due to lack of years in existence, reliable sources tell me that Silver Heel is the original log canoe to have used red.  We’re an accepting bunch, and knowing that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we’re A-OK with that other boat’s using red (sometimes people think we’re doing better than we are as a result of similar colors, which can’t be that bad…right?).  Feel free to fact-check me on that, as I’m willing to print any proof to the contrary of my assertion.  Either way—not pink, RED!

Why the pink shirts, then?  Well, those aren’t pink shirts that the crew has been wearing these past few years, especially this year.  In fact, those are the most recent batch of red crew shirts the Heel has, dating all the way back to the early 2000s.  We had them printed up in 2002 for the hundredth anniversary of the Silver Heel—many in the fleet still remember the epic blowout party my grandparents threw at Bachelor’s Hope for the occasion.  So these shirts have been worn by many crewmembers for every regatta since 2002, not to mention non-regatta use, and they’ve had a wee bit of sun fading take the red out.  Sailors, especially those familiar with the Oxford Regatta party (see the earlier post), should know that this isn’t pink—it’s still red (it’s not Nantucket red in this case, but let’s call it Silver Heel red).

The new hotness.

Still don’t believe me?  In that case, consider the mystery of the pink Silver Heel shirts put to rest next week when we make the long-anticipated (in certain, very small circles, at least) debut of our new crew shirts at the Museum Regatta.  That’s right!  After a lot of brainstorming with various members of the crew, a few of us had some heated debates that raged late into the night, not settling until the perfect design sprang out of our heads, full grown and brilliant in its stylish simplicity (if I may say so myself).

Which is better? The right sleeve...

Joining the traditional (if very slightly modified) depiction of the Heel is a little flair on the right sleeve, the Silver Heel “2″ along with “C.B.L.S.C.A.” for the sanctioning body of log canoe sailing, the Chesapeake Bay Log Sailing Canoe Association (right?).  We shamelessly lifted the “2″ on the sleeve from the other boats that use this (Blossom, Lark(?)), so thanks for the idea.

...or the left sleeve? Trick question: both are perfect.

Also new is the left sleeve design, which has the crossed burgees of the Heel’s home club, the Chester River Yacht and Country Club, and my grandparents’ house flag, a red pennant with black border and black bird flying in the middle (after a bit of information gathering, I’ll have the type of bird listed at some point).  You’ve seen the latter before if you sail canoes, either on the Yetsgo, Bojan, or on that infernal kite of ours (although the house flag design looks pretty sweet on there).  I think it’s a pretty classy touch.

The design was put into digital form by my uber-capable cousin Will, who happens to be the youngest member of the crew but also the most technologically fluent.  Now that I’ve gotten my lazy butt to get the order in, barring any unforeseen snags in production or shipping due to, say, hurricanes, we’ll be modeling new red threads just in time for the end of the season.  As if you couldn’t tell, I’m pretty excited that these are finally coming down the pipe; my 2002 shirt has been disintegrating on my shoulders this season.

For the next six years, at least, let’s put to rest the pink shirt theories.  Red is back!

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Tags: Shirts, Team Colors