On Friday, September 12 during the St. Francis Big Boat Regatta, Damir Priskich proposed to his girlfriend Tina Korich in the most delightful manner. Damir is a long time crew member on Bob Musor’s J-130 Sceptre, so when he wanted to propose he decided to get Sceptre help out.

The day before he arranged for fellow member of the Sceptre gang, Ashely Perrin to help out. Together with Sally Lindsay at Technical Sewing (aka The Spinnaker Shop) in Palo Alto, she put Damir’s plan into action. Sally punched out Damir’s message of love in
sticky back letters on her plotter which were applied to one of Sceptre’s old mainsails, with red hearts by Damir’s name for emphasis. With military precision it was agreed that Ashley would sail Sceptre with the proposal mainsail by Crissy Field @ precisely 1:45 PM when Damir had a date with Tina to celebrate her birthday. Watches were synchronized and the plan was a go!

It all went off without a hitch…except for one little thing. At the agreed upon time Sceptre was in perfectly positioned off Chrissy, but Damir was still working up to asking the big question. Fortunately Tina is slightly nearsighted and didn’t notice the 43′ boat just off the beach with her name on the mainsail and a quick cell phone call from a friend of Damir’s enlisted to capture these pictures explained the situation to Ashley. At 1:50 PM Sceptre tacked upwind again for a few minutes to allow the nervous suitor to get regain his composure. He did, Sceptre gybed, eased the main sheet and sailed down the beach again!

So in the midst of all the boats racing the BBS regatta and slightly after 2 PM, Damir said “Look Tina, there’s Sceptre!” As Tina read Damir’s proposal on the mainsail, Damir dropped onto one knee in the surf and presented her with a beautiful diamond engagement ring. A hot, sunny day in San Francisco had brought many other people down to Crissy field who all raised a cheer when Tina said “Yes!”