Translated from post written by Juan Santos, Fleet 405, Salinas, Ecuador
Dear Friends of the Lightning Class,
On Saturday, September 30, the Lightning Class lost one of the best sailors in the history of the Lightning Class in our country, Francisco Sola Medina, our dear Paco competed in Lightnings from a very young age. He was Ecuador´s winning skipper for many years. He won many national championships, he was 2 times South American Champion and 5 times Runner-Up, among several other titles. I had the honor of crewing with him, along with Johny Meira in the championship we won in Peru in 1979. He was always a source of inspiration, he was unpassable in light wind and like all sailors with natural talent he had great intuition and reading of the course. His settings of the boat were of his creation and at his discretion, but the boat always flew. I am not sure if it was for his set-ups or his extraordinary hand at the helm.
There are some great quotes from Paco.... a few of the best-known ones and, that of course we have adopted are:
"they are screwed... today I woke up reeking of winner"
"When I sail badly I come in second"
When a championship was not going well:
"Worst corpses have I seen carrying sand"
Or, when he was deep in the fleet:
“These are the races that make me famous.”
Once he didn't win the Glorias Navales Championship...he said:
"I don't know what they awarding...the only Naval Glory that Ecuador has is me"
He was incredibly cool and had a hell of a competitive spirit and he would have enjoyed all of us with toasting him with a good glass of scotch at Garita 13.... he was great for a few drinks with friends.
Today I wanted to remember Don Paco so this new generation, that did not have the same luck of sailing alongside and against him, knows him a little better.
Paco Sola lifting the South American Champions Permanent Trophy in La Punta, Perú, 1979. Juan Santos in the background.
Memory from Paco (Jr)
I learned to love Lightnings crewing for my dad, many memories come back but mostly I remember him as a winner. We would spend countless hours prepping the boat, before and after racing, and he would always be looking out for that little extra wind that would push us ahead. The light wind was indeed his specialty and he´d already have lit a cigarette before we even finished to hoist the spinnaker, he said it was his best telltale!
He gave me my first Lightning in 1985, a red Allen 12693. We had just taken a beating sailing the Juegos Bolivarianos in Salinas against Andres Lisocky from Colombia and he was very frustrated and said he was ready to quit. He asked if I wanted the boat and … that was my first Lightning. The despair didn’t last long, the next year he bought his beloved 14150, “Plastic Fantastic” he used to call it, but he never actually named it. It was a new generation Nickels, a beauty that I keep and sail competitively. Two years later in 1987 he won the South Americans for a second time in Salinas, this time with my brother Ricardo and Juan Manuel Meira, in a tight series against Juan Santos, the sailor he always respected the most.
The last time he sailed competitively was at the inaugural Masters Championships in Salinas, in 1999, when sailing with Juan Santos and Arturo Iturralde they fought hard against Jack Elfman and Tom Allen Sr., finishing third.
My dad was very much involved in organizing races so that he could sail. The ILCA recognized him with a Distinguished Services Award for organizing the 1975 South Americans and Worlds in our home club, the Salinas Yacht Club.
