Brion Toss Crossed the Bar

[John Stone]

I leaned today that the famed rigger and author Brion Toss passed away. He was 69 years old.

I met Brion at the Annapolis boat show about 2008. I took him to lunch and he kindly answered questions about my rig plans and encouraged me to splice my own standing rigging. I learned the details from his book, A Riggers Apprentice. It is well worn and dog eared now. He told me to make a splice and send a picture and he would critiqued it by email. He was a good as his word. I made a total of about 30 practice splices before I spliced the rigging for the Far Reach. He was very supportive and encouraging. One of my proudest accomplishments was when he told me I had mastered it.

We have lost a great beacon of rigging knowledge as well as a wonderful human being. Farewell Brion.

[John Stone]

I hand spliced all the rigging on the Far Reach.

[mgphl52]

So sad to hear of his passing at such a "young" age. Those are some beautiful splices!

[s2sailorlis]

Sad...., I had seen a post by Lin Pardey on Facebook about this. His advice was sound and he was helpful with questions I had via email... RIP

[Bill Goldsmith]

This is very sad. When he hosted his web site forum in the past, he took the time to respond to peoples' detailed questions (including mine) and I learned a lot. His book is a bible for rigging.

[Ben Thomas]

I was fortunate to have met Brian when he came down to Portland to talk rigging essentials. He tuned the rig on "Milagro" as I hovered over his shoulder, watched and asked questions which he answered with grace, knowledge and patience.
Many questions were answered about the running rigging as well, the basis for many improvements that I have made since.
A finely tuned rig/mast is a pleasure to sail.
I had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman who is following in his footsteps last year and taking over where he left off. Ian Weedman, another master of rigging who worked with Brian for many years.

Cheers...

[John Stone]

The forum was called Spar Talk. It was a great source of info. A very helpful bunch or folks. Toss shut it down because of hacking and spamming issues. I called and chatted with an employee who worked there. She told me they were talking about standing it back up. I recommended they take a look at the CD forum and possibly contact the administrators to see how this forum is run. I sent them a link. They seemed interested. But nothing came if it.

It remains a big loss to the rigging community.