Jesse's had Hobie 16s on our beach for about twenty years and sails more days than all of us other "weekend sailors" combined. Half of our sixty-boat fleet has at one time or another been "Jesse Rigged" directly by the man himself, or by the owners with Jesse's advice. Some of his alterations include doubled-up shrouds for sailing with the big broads and lobster pot buoys at the top of masts. Jesse sailed a Hobie 16 to the Bahamas and back and served in the Navy sailing all over the Atlantic on some sort of an amphibious vessel. And he's won his share of local races on both Hobie 16s and a modified Prindle 19.

On a typical day at Delray Beach Jesse arrives first wearing his white cowboy hat pushing his wheelbarrow full with sails, big green umbrella, and supplies. He sits on a bucket that holds binoculars and baby oil for the man-a-war jellyfish stings. Then he sets up his Hobie 16, now with a new square top mainsail. His first voyage of the day is usually solo because no one else is around, but later in the day he'll "go a trollin" down the beach for female crew that meet his criteria for the days wind and wave conditions.

None of us know how old Jesse is but his earliest memory was as a young hillbilly child crawling out of an abandoned coal mine on the east side of the Carolina mountains. It was a colder than a well digger's ass that morning and rainin like piss out of gum boot. The only clothing poor Jesse had was an old beach towel wrapped around his bare shoulders. He was full of spit and vinager, and meaner than a red-headed step child, and soon went about huntin up some grub.

He stalked a deer, which after two days of Jesse's relentless tracking was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He finally kilt and ate his first deer with bare hands. Soon he became slicker than snot on a glass doorknob with his hunting skills and as the snow got deeper he migrated down the mountains toward the coast.

From here his history is unclear but we found several people who knew Jesse and admitted it. The local women in the port town described young Jesse as being, "So horny, that the crack of dawn wasn't safe." And his former Navy officer remembered Jesse was, "about as useful as a screen door on a submarine,” and “If bullshit were music, he'd have a brass band!" A woman in the local jail, who claimed to be his former girlfriend said she wished to marry Jesse, but getting him to the chapel, "was like trying to push a wet rope up a hill."

Seriously, Jesse is a great sailor and come race day he's busier than a one legged man at an ass kickin contest by helping with anything and anyone. He'll watch for you if you're sailing solo, he'll rescue you if your boat starts sinking, he'll lend you tools, give you parts, sail in the marks, help push your boat up, get your vehicle unstuck from the sand, share his fruit and nuts. But the nicest thing about Jesse is that he slows down to let me pass when we're sailing on the big blue Atlantic Ocean, and you can't ask for a better friend than that.<br><br>