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On their first day of shop class at Point Loma High School in the mid-1960s, students were asked what they wanted to build. While most scribbled down: shelf units, tables or chests, senior
Brian D. Thomas wrote: “Two sabots.”
After class his teacher warned him that he had set an extremely lofty goal. In 20 years of teaching shop, he said that no student had ever finished even one sabot in an entire year.
One month later, though, Thomas had his boat off the shop class jig and took it home to work on it.
“I built four boats that year in wood shop,” recalls Thomas, who, after serving a year as commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club, became junior staff commodore last December.