DAN'S PAPERS, August 13, 2010 Page 28 www.danshamptons.com
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Best Stories from the First 50 Years
Off to Portugal
54 Entrants Vie in Contest to Throw Something off Montauk Point This story first appeared in Dan’s Papers on August 16, 1991 By Dan Rattiner “This is entry #17, a fatherdaughter team,” I said. “They are coming out on the course now, Leslie Trowbridge and Edie Cappo of Southampton, and as you can see they have a purple airplane made of poster board. It looks homemade, and Leslie is wearing the traditional white hat and suspenders of Southampton. You have 40 seconds, Trowbridge and Cappo. Walk around the course and check it out. Then wait for the whistle and you will have five minutes to launch.” Trowbridge, who was holding this airplane into the wind, walked down the lawn toward the edge of the 80-foot cliff, looked out into the Atlantic Ocean and made a few throwing motions without actually throwing. The murmuring of the crowd reduced to a hush and the Jim Turner Band, playing behind the Mission Control Center, tamped down a bit of jug band
music to give Trowbridge a chance to think. I glanced 10 stories up to the top of the white tower in front of the Montauk Lighthouse where our volunteers from Grumman Aerospace and the United States Coast Guard were positioned, and I whispered into my hand held radio. “Base to Tower. Base to Tower.” “This is Tower,” came the reply. “We have a go on Trowbridge, entry 17.” “Go #17.” I tapped my eight-year-old son David standing next to me, a cue, and he took a deep
breath and blew the black Coast Guard police whistle a long tweet. “You have five minutes,” I said. “Take your time.” This is what it was like at exactly 12:25 in the afternoon on Saturday, August 10, on the broad green lawn alongside the Montauk Lighthouse. I was sitting on a folding chair at a bridge table on this lawn—it was Mission Control Center—and I alternated between the public address system and the two-way radio, explaining things to the crowd on one, and then talking to Grumman and the Coast Guard on the other. Sometimes, perhaps because the entries were at five-minute intervals, it was a little like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. After a moment or two, Trowbridge took a running start with his homemade airplane and (continued on page 34)
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