[Rhodes22-list] Sad news

[Michael D. Weisner]

I'm so sorry, Cindy. Thank you for the news, sad as it is.

I can't believe that I met your dad some 45 years ago at the Stamford In-the-Water boat show. He told me not to buy a boat yet - he wanted me to try the new IMF design that he was working on. I waited until the following year. Still no IMF.

We went out for a very windy "test sail" in October 1980, wondering why he sculled his way from the canal behind the house in Amityville until we found the wind. I asked him if the 6HP motor worked and he said that he thought so, but he didn't feel like starting it just to navigate the canal. Vintage Stan.

In heavy wind, I gibed and Stan just smiled as he sat with his back to the cabin in a down coat (his favorite spot). He said that I should learn to sail more gently or I might lose the rail meat. He never had a concern about damaging the boat. I purchased my first Rhodes 22 "trailer package" (without IMF) at Rose's kitchen table as soon as Stan coaxed the boat back to the slip. During the winter months, I became a fixture at the shop, watching my Rhodes being built. I picked it up in March and two weeks later Stan taught me the finer points of sailing his creation on our "shakedown cruise." He showed me everything except how to get her back on the trailer! The water was very cold that night in March. Talk about an adventure...

I used to chide him that for an electrical engineer he was a terrible hack. He thought that it was brilliant to use a two position headlight switch to control the running and interior lighting. Being a Brooklyn Poly minted EE, I redesigned the entire system. He commented that we should add more positive floatation after I put in multiple batteries, solar cells, and an auto radio/cassette.

I finally got my IMF Rhodes when I purchased my 1991 Rhodes with the "Works package" complete with a real traveler! My three female children and my wife much preferred "the flush head" to the old porta potty. I don't know what the problem was with the PP. We enjoyed sailing the LI Sound and built many fond memories on our Rhodes 22 throughout the years. I still sail the '91 as often as I can.

We will miss the old Purdue tinkerer.

Mike
s/v Wind Lass ('91)
Nissequogue River, NY
I’d rather be sailing :~)

-----Original Message-----
From: Rhodes22-list <rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org> On Behalf Of Cindy Spitzer
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2024 4:13 PM
To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Sad news

Stanley Spitzer – the creator and relentless innovator of the Rhodes 22 sailboat; the inventor of the earlier Picnic 17; the love of Rose Spitzer’s life for more than 70 years; father of Cindy, Scott, and Skip Spitzer; dear brother of Elton Spitzer (also a legend in his time); the impossibly precocious first born of Harold and Gertrude Spitzer; the Purdue University trained electrical engineer, self-taught Madison Avenue copywriter, management consultant, wire recorder salesman, and builder of mid-century homes so unconventional he had to go to court to defend his roof lines; the 98-year-old World War II Navy veteran; the perpetually young risk-taker who never saw a mountain too tall or a dream too distant; the skinny can-do kid from Brooklyn who dragged a sunken sailboat out of Sheepshead Bay and thought he would live forever – has died.

Every person is a universe.  A solar system of friends, relatives, and countless people we touch in countless way, often without fully knowing who or how much.

And every death is a universe imploding.  A world and all its stories suddenly gone.

No words can capture a person’s life.  Just know that if you are reading this right now, that means you – the full, evolving universe of you – intersected with Stan in some way and left your mark.  As he certainly left his on us.

Goodbye, daddy.