Mike Bright

(L-R) Mike Bright, Bob Hogan, John McFarlane, Chip Post and Greg Noll at the Isthmus, evening before the Catalina Race.

Mike Bright grew up near the beach, and enjoyed surfing and paddling on a paddleboard. He got better and better at paddling as the 1950’s went along. In 1955 the first Catalina race was started, the first of many Catalina races. Originally the idea for the Race was developed by the Manhattan Beach Recreation Department and would be sponsored by others.

To enter, each paddler had to have a chase boat to follow them during the race.  Mike would enter the race and his boat skipper for the 1955 race was Dave Perumian, known as Black Bass. Black Bass was the skipper and Fred Kerwin was his first mate. Actually Fred was a fine skipper himself, so Mike had two skippers who knew the waters around San Pedro Channel.


 
They went to the Isthmus of Catalina the day before the race and were ready to go. Mike had come in first the last few races he was in and was pumped for this one. The night before the race Mike and Greg Noll  decided to sleep on the beach by the starting line. This way they would be awoken before the 5 a.m. start. Mike and Greg did not go to the pre-race instruction meeting.


Since this was the first of the Catalina Races there may have been a miscommunication to some of the skippers. As it turned out neither Bass or Fred were at the pre-race instructions meeting and it proved to be a disadvantage. Race officials did not have written instruction for the skippers, just in case there was a misunderstanding. One skipper didn't even fuel up for the race?
 

The day of the race was pea soup fog. Mike was even more confident in his skippers of finding their way to the finish. The gun sounded and the race was on. They passed Birdshit Rock without seeing it, but you could smell it. Mike’s boat guided off to the left or more north of the pack.
 

Mike figured that they had been studying the currents and would give them a hell of an advantage to finish with the current behind him. Around a half mile out Bass gets a radio message from one of the other boats. It seemed he had forgotten to fuel up for the race and would have to leave his paddler. It turned out that his paddler wouldn’t get in the boat and wanted to finish the race.
 

After a lot of cussing, Bass was ordered by the race committee to stand by that paddler and escort him the rest of the 31 ½ miles to Manhatten Beach. While Bass and Fred went looking for and finding their second paddler. Mike went from a knee paddling position to sitting on the board and waited for the boat and the other paddler to catch up. 


 It was so foggy Mike was going in a circle while keeping them in sight. They would catch up and Mike would start paddling normally for a while. Then went into a sitting position for the other paddler to catch up. It was a routine that repeated itself again and again. Eventually Mike gave up hope of winning and just sat and paddle next to the guy for about twenty more miles.

The other guy just wouldn’t get out of the water, thinking he was doing well.  A bit of luck came Mike’s way. Some black dorsal fins were breaking the surface outside of them. Bass mentions to the guy they were Killer Whales, while Mike stayed quiet, knowing they were porpoises. The guy got in the boat finally, but as Mike put it, we were screwed from the start. By missing the meeting, we were some forty-five minutes from my house in Hermosa, heading for Point Dume. After getting in they heard that they were supposed to round Pointe Vincente light-house at Palos Verdes, a disappointing way to end the first Catalina Race.

The standing for the 1955 Catalina Race: 1st Ricky Grigg, 2nd Charlie Reimer, 3rd Greg Noll, 4th George Downing, 5th George Chalekson, 6th Donald Anderson, 7th Allan Nelson, 8th Larry Cocke, the following were DNF Did not finish or DQ Disqualified. Mike Bright DNF, Tom Zahn DQ, Bill Graham DNF, Bob Hogan DNF, Sheridan Byerley DNF.  The fog was thick, from the start to the finish

After the 1955 race, Mike Bright would come in first at the 1956 and 1957 races.

Mike Bright  paddling through the surf at Hermosa Beach