With a heavy heart, South Florida resident continues father’s legacy of sailing success

When Eric Roberts sailed the Miami Key Largo Race last year, everything he did, everything he thought and everything he touched on that boat connected him to his father.

After all, his father, Bill Roberts, had built that 30-foot catamaran – by hand – and named it “Dream On”, in honor of the Aerosmith song.

Bill, who was a mechanical engineer for jet engines, had dominated the Miami Key Largo Race for at least two decades, often with Eric in the boat with him. But last year, on April 13, Bill died of heart failure at age 81.

Two weeks later, a grief-stricken Eric Roberts sailed in honor of his father and won the race by more than an hour, with the help of long-time friends and teammates George McCorkle and Dave Weir.

“It’s still hard for me to talk about,” said Roberts, a 49-year-old physical therapist from Palm Beach County. “But racing was a nice distraction from the grief, and it was very rewarding to sail well and win by a large margin.

“We definitely felt my father’s presence on board. Things he taught me over the years popped into my head. It felt like he was sitting next to me, talking to me.”

Bill Roberts, who set the Miami Key Largo Race course record in 1998, stopped competing five years ago. At that point, he asked McCorkle to take his place on the boat with Eric and Weir.

“It was a privilege,” McCorkle said. “It was great to sail on the boat he designed. It’s one of the fastest boats in Florida.

“All I know is that when I raced against Bill, I never beat him.”

Few people did.

Eric Roberts, who started sailing with his dad in 1986 when he was just 15, said there were only three years in that entire span when Bill did not cross the finish line first in Key Largo. On two of those occasions, their boat capsized due to overly aggressive racing, which happens in the sport. On the third occasion, they decided not to race due to bad weather.

Other than that, however, either Bill and/or Eric Roberts have been on winning boats for decades, and that was again the case this past Saturday. Eric Roberts, McCorkle and Weir won the annual race sponsored by the Miami Yacht Race.

This year’s race — due to the coronavirus pandemic — did not venture to Key Largo. Instead, the competitors sailed a 24-mile loop, and Roberts’ team came in first out of 52 boats with a time of one hour, 42 minutes, 20 seconds.

Roberts said his father — who certainly would’ve been proud of that effort — was a fierce competitor. But he was also quite generous and sporting.

“He was driven to sail well and win, but he also tried to help others get faster,” Eric said. “He was a thinker – always analyzing things from an engineering standpoint, teaching me about aerodynamics.”

One thing is certain: Bill Roberts left a lasting legacy and a tradition that continues.