Most summer days I went sailing in the late afternoon out on the Bay, sliding home by sunset.  One evening I found my course converging with that of a rakish black ketch with a clipper bow, and I sailed over to have a closer look.  She turned out to be a leeboard sharpie.
I happened to be intensely interested in sharpies.  I had read about them in Chapelle's books as a boy, and studied their plans, but I never had a chance to sail one, and as far as I knew they were extinct.  At the wheel was a man with short, fuzzy blond hair. I drew-alongside,
sailing parallel, close aboard, and said hello.  We exchanged compliments. He said Little Slipper was doing pretty well to keep up with Blackgauntlet, being some ten feet shorter. He was bound into Hospital Cove for the night, and as we approached Bassett Island we diverged again.