Nick Seraphinoff Recalls Chip Cunningham
A couple of days ago, I received an email from my long-lost friend Chip Cunningham. What a pleasant surprise! However, as I read, I realized it was actually from his wife, Sky. She was informing me that Chip had passed away a couple of days before. I wrote back asking if it was sudden, hoping it was a heart attack while splitting wood by hand or that he was caught in a storm on Saginaw Bay while sailing his Wayfarer single-handed. But no. It was the old killer CANCER and it took more than a year to take him down. I wouldn’t have believed anything could do that, short of a storm on Saginaw Bay.

I met Chip when I had my first Wayfarer MarkIV #10864. He was new to racing but that didn’t last long. We went from sailing the Wayfarer to an Osprey and before we knew it, we drove to New York and picked up a Tempest (the source of some of our adventures). The Tempest is a keel boat with a trapeze and much more difficult to capsize, which had always been a big part of our performances in the Wayfarer and Osprey. We only managed to capsize the Tempest twice!

While we shared some scary adventures, every one of them was punctuated by fun. I am going to share but a few of them:

One Sunday afternoon, when we had the Wayfarer at the Bayview Yacht Club, we dropped the boat in and took a cruise to the legendary Goat Yard, which was almost a full mile from the club on the Detroit River. We, of course, loaded up the necessities for a trip like this – a six-pack of Heinekens in long-neck bottles and Chip’s camera. He took over a hundred pictures of the place and I walked around with a beer in my hand, enjoying the junkyard. In the meantime, Chip had t-shirts made for us. Printed on the front were our names Chip & Nick. On the back was printed “More than just normal wear & tear.”

JUST THE BEGINNING!
And then there was capsizing the Wayfarer on Tawas Bay during the Tawas Bay Regatta. The boat was upside down and I realized I hadn’t seen Chip for a while. No worries! He always shows up. Sure enough! He eventually came popping up from beneath the boat. His head was covered with blood and he said, ‘I was tangled in lines and had a heck of a time getting out of there.” I said, “What happened to your head?” His reply was he must have scraped it on something. NO PANIC! That was Chip and that was why I always felt safe sailing with him. I can’t tell you how many times he hauled me up on the boat after we righted it.

Another of our dubious adventures was the day we decided to leave Bayview with our ubiquitous six-pack of long-neck Heinekens (it’s important to stay hydrated when on the water) at 4:30 in the afternoon and sail down the river to the Ambassador Bridge. It all went well, we were sailing with the wind and the swift Detroit River current and almost reached the bridge before we ran out of beer. We then started back, against the current and against the wind. I should mention that on this team the term common sense did not exist. We shoulda known we needed at least a 12-pack.

At 10:30 that night, with no lights, we rounded the eastern tip of Belle Isle, a bit of water we shared with the freighters. I remember looking up and saying, “Gosh Chip, I don’t remember that apartment building with all of those lights.” It was no building – it was a north-bound freighter going past us.

We then moved on to taking the boats to Crescent Sail Club on Lake St. Clair for new adventures. Chip was still traveling with me with the Wayfarer to whatever disastrous adventures we could find. One of them was the Wayfarer Worlds in Port Credit in Canada where we placed twelfth. Probably the high point of our Wayfarer sailing but not the high point of our fun. At one point we went to Rock Hall in Maryland for the Wayfarer Regatta where we added to our team. Mary and I were staying at a bed and breakfast and Chip was camping at the club.



We were eating breakfast and it was storming, thunder and lightning and the whole bit. I said, “Oh no, Mary. Look at that weather. We are going to get to the club and that idiot Cato (a.k.a. CHIP) is going to force me to go out sailing.” Of course he did! That was when I had the t-shirt made that said Cato on the back.



Chip was not happy when I named the Tempest Heckle & Jeckle. He then set off to exact revenge. And thus was created one of my favorite Chip stories. I came down to the Wayfarer one day to sail with Chip and he very innocently said, “Since we always drink Heineken, I mounted a bottle opener on the mast of the Wayfarer.” I looked down and there, sure enough, he had installed a bottle opener on the mast. To do that, it was necessary to drill two 3/8-inch diameter holes through the mast, which absolutely destroyed the structural integrity of it.



I was just sick! Chip said my only reaction was, “We should talk about some of these things before we do them.” What I was actually thinking was, "You idiot. It is going to cost $2,000 for a new mast." But there it was. The drill motor was sitting in the boat with metal shavings all around it and the drill bit still mounted. He let me stew for a few more minutes and then reached over and plucked the whole mess off of the mast. IT WAS ALL GLUED ON!



Chip and I were at exact polar ends of the political spectrum but so alike in so many ways. At one point he made a small trophy (above) of a sailboat and actually awarded it to us combined with one of his “Speeches.” It dwelled on what an “Unlikely” pair we were. Oh so true. We didn’t talk politics much, probably because we were busy getting out of whatever scrape we had gotten ourselves into. One of the things he enjoyed was hanging around the Allied Ventilation shop a bit. There are a couple of pictures of him at the shop.



One of my favorite photos is of Chip on the wire when we were sailing the Tempest. A favorite trick of his was letting go of the boat and swinging back to where I was driving. He would then attach himself to my back and hang there. I would then be yelling, to no avail, “Get this Monkey off of me.“ To no avail! Even though we grew apart eight years ago, I will always cherish the years from 2011 to 2016 as some of the best of my life. The world will miss you, Chip!

These are all the photos that Nick sent. There would be more but those are probably under water.

Anne Pugh
Admin
Top Contributor
Nick Seraphinoff - this is so very sad - I think we all have tales to tell about Chip - you more than most obviously. He was such a character. I remember taking both of you to our local in Oakville - where the vegetarian Chip devoured one of the biggest burgers on the menu - I think "just don't tell Sky" was Chips comment!
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Mark Taylor
Sorry to hear this. Sad news.
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Robert Carl Mosher
Top Contributor
I admired Chip and will always remember when a race was called because of storm front came through. We of course kept pounding it down wind. We forced several Wayfarers to unroll the reefs least we got all the beer.
Do you know if there will be a memorial service.
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Rob Wierdsma
Admin
Great tribute Nick. So sad to know we won’t be hearing anymore of his stories.
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Robert Carl Mosher
Top Contributor
Chip and I were exchanging emails on cruising Lake ST Clair, up to 5 Mar 2024. Now I understand why he would never agree to join us.
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Michael Codd
Thank you Nick for a another wonderful tail about a special human. You both have touched many lives, and he will be remembered by all who meet him.
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Rahn Peter
Chip and Nick gave us many things to laugh about….especially the bottle opener stunt, a Chip classic!
Rip
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Michele Parish
I’m so sad to hear about Chip. What a great guy!