The Legend of Imp: The Magical Yacht That Rocked The Sailing World

Review by: Kimball Livingston; Editor-at-Large for Sail Magazine

Occasionally in ensemble theatre, a cast strikes fire. The players become something more than players, their vehicle more than a play. When the individuals move on to other work, they harbor a longing for whatever that was, which of course wasn't fire exactly but then we don't exactly have the right word for it, do we? We just know it when we see it. The crew of the ocean racing sloop, imp, was such an ensemble, and their vehicle, imp, was born special.

San Francisco Bay has a solid reputation in the sailing world. The place is far from the major routes, but that has not kept bay sailors from occasionally rocking the world. Dave Allen's boat before imp, IMPROBABLE, was in its moment as hot-surfing improbable as its name. imp with its space frame and rules optimization was entirely different from IMPROBABLE, except in the spirit that it took to say to the designer, yes, that one.

The crew looked more like a rock band than yachties, but hey, that's San Francisco, and they rarely missed a note. They were huge stateside, and they were huge in Europe. Now a new generation of sailors has grown up, and they can reasonably wonder why it was such a big deal to win a Southern Ocean Racing Circuit, and what the heck did it mean to win selection to represent the USA at an Admiral's Cup and in the process win a Fastnet Race? You have questions, Bill Barton has answers, right down to riding the killer '79 Fastnet storm in the hours when, "I never saw the anemometer leave the peg."

As a journalist I was not close to the birth of imp, but I have been close to the birth of The Legend of imp, and for that I am grateful. I remember the times. Now, as a reader, I've been for the ride.