F#%*ing Iain
CAUTION: This blog may contain coarse language. Parental Discretion is advised

There are 4 Ian's in our sailing club. When I told a fellow sailor I was going in the Commissioner's Cup with Iain, he asked if I was going with F#%*ing Iain, from now on this is how we are going to describe him. The reason being is that Iain has the ability to use that word in many contexts, he can use it as a noun, a verb, an adjective or any other part of speech you would care to think up! He can even use it to coin new words such as absofuckinglutely. Iain and I were on Misty II for 80 hours over the long weekend so we learned a few things about each other.
Effing Iain is a true northern character, he lives off the grid. Iain does not currently have a job, he lives on his sailboat in Great Slave Lake, which is North of 60. He does not have a phone, does not pay for electricity, if he wants running water he takes his boat out into the bay where the water quality is better and fills up his tanks. He is rough, uncouth and very very loud. His booming laugh is infectious, it is said that on one Commissioner's Cup race boats were becalmed, it was dark and they could not see each other but they could hear Iain's laugh. Iain was born and raised in Northern England so the Pommy Bastard has some peculiar traits. He likes cheese and pickle sandwiches, he farts very loudly and he has been known to ask the photographer to wait a second because he has to scratch his balls. Notice where Iain's hand is! ( I did warn you about the coarse language)
Effing Iain wanted to be an aircraft engineer, he has the brains, but he got on the wrong side of his headmaster in England. The first time he met the man, was in court where the headmaster had to testify on Iain's behalf on some charge, what the exact nature of the charge was, was not revealed. At the end of the school year the students were given a week off to cram for their O levels or final exams to get into university. Iain buggered off to air cadet school and got his gliders license, when he returned to take his exams the headmaster expelled him. This was the end of Iain dream of being an aircraft engineer! I am not exactly sure what happened after that but the next portion of his life that Effing Iain revealed to me was when he was driving truck for a living and emigrated to Canada six weeks after his wife suggested the idea.
From there Iain seems to have engaged in numerous pursuits in order to earn a living. He repaired aircraft, he tended bar for years, he was a Xerox repair man, he paints houses, basically he can do anything he puts his minds to. You would never know it to look at him but Iain is a amazing fellow, he reads extensively and can retain all sorts of useless information, he can converse knowledgeably on arcane subjects, he enjoys listening to Edith Piaff, he is an excellent chef and he loves dry English humour, he quotes Monty Python skits verbatim. That just goes to show you can not judge a person on appearance alone, that would be a huge mistake in Effing Iain's case. Oh and did I mention Iain loves to party, he is a pot head and every time he would ask me what time it was on the boat I would faithfully look at my watch and tell him the time and he would sing out, ITS BONG TIME! He gave up smoking but he might as well not because his lungs suffer just as much if not more from the amount of pot he smokes.
The man has a million stories the best one involved the fact that Iain was related in some manner to an old time Yellowknifer that was a geologist. This guy had discovered a gold mine and was very well off. A buddy came to visit and pick his brains about where he might find diamonds here in the Territories. Iain was asked to leave because the discussion was "Private", years later the man who came to visit was responsible for the huge diamond find here. Iain figures if he had played his hunch and bought shares he would be filthy rich. The other story involves arson. Iain was working for a small outfit that ran a fishing lodge. The owner had run the lodge into the ground and was hurting financially. Out at the lodge the owner decided to take things into his own hands. He had one of the fishing guides bring a barrel of diesel up to the lodge and then sent him away with a customer far away across the lake, weird!! When the guide returned the lodge had gone up in flames. The owner reported that one of the guides must have been smoking in the their cabin because the guide accommodations had gone up first and then the fire had attacked the main lodge. Well little did the owner know someone was flying over in a Twin Otter and saw the main lodge burning but the guide shack was perfectly fine. OOPS, I suppose if you are going to be an arsonists you should get your story straight.
I could go on adfinitum, but I think you get the idea. The CC race always leaves me with great memories. I will always remember Fucking Iain and his way with words!!!! I am extremely grateful that Iain allowed me to badger him into going on the CC. He has been in 10 or 11 races but never as Captain and it was great to see him win on a boat that has it's name on the Cup about 5 times. Jim would be glad that you carried on the tradition Iain!!