Bursting through the surface, water flowing over my forehead and eyes, rapidly gulping in some fresh air then realizing there was a unique calm in this tight little world. An atmosphere barely higher than the size of a human head squeezed between a rounded fiberglass hull as my stratosphere and crystal clear green water as my ocean, reflecting light upwards from the rays coming through the thin sun-slot in its sky. Hiking straps, halyards and sheets hanging and floating throughout this environment gave it definition, but with an unsettled feeling. Cool spot I thought, I could hang out here for a while, wish I was a kid again with some buddies, oh what great games we would construct. Then a thought crept in, “Am I not supposed to be going to a sailboat race”?
Now, the momentary purpose of my existence here; grabbing the 4-foot buoyant center board I took aim at the centerboard slot with its tip but struggled to straighten it enough to slide it through. Not much room in this one-foot high atmosphere. Putting my foot in the center board handle I pushed it downward, lined it up and shoved it straight up to the next universe high above my current claustrophobic hydraulic world. Gone was my sun and light in my temporary world.
Diving down and back out to real world there she was the Gaylen Winds in a turtled position, in the middle of Great Pond with the centerboard pointing toward the true sun. A routine grabbing of the centerboard to right her took a couple minutes then off we towed her behind the Whaler to the Bradley’s for the start of the Milfoil Race. Just consider this a routine emergency rescue refresher course or maybe some excitement to get us through what was about to come.
The Bradley’s cove looked beautifully picturesque as we pulled in and anchored our boat. Many a fine sloop rig moored in random positions illuminated by the bright sun in this cloudless sky enhanced the scenery and would give any true racer a semi-shot of adrenaline as one sized up the competition and started the calculations of how each type of sloop would fair in the light fickle winds and what devious schemes their captains were plotting. Err, or was that just me.
After a brief review of the race layout by Pete McManus and of the starting flag sequence expertly presented by Ben Ford, we also learned many other flag definitions but mostly learned to fear the dreaded blue cross, the individual foul flag for crossing the start too early, or perhaps some other egregious foul aggressively enacted on a fellow clubmate. Good thing we also reviewed the course change flag as well because it was invoked before the start sequence moving the first leg from the Ledges mark to the Otter Island mark. All of us got the message being so tightly clumped except for the Commodore who was sailing a bit further away planning his strategy, which in retrospect didn’t work this time.
Apparently, most of us learned to fear the blue cross a bit too much, as all but Ben took several minutes to cross the start line after the start horn blew and the Club Flag dropped. It was off to the races or were we just having a group hug. It seemed we completely ran out of wind. I thought the Violette’s fouled Lynne and I by causing us to veer from our starboard tack with the Pamela Jean on a port tack, however I really couldn’t tell if we were sailing or just getting sloshed about. I think our boats hit but we were going so slow no one could swear to it. Ben and Sam, in the Queen Bee, were smart and took a nice port tack at the mark away from the committee boat then darted off at 1mph toward a mark somewhere beyond sight by Otter island. It was better than our collective ½ mph speeds but that is what sailing is all about, good strategy.
As we all edged along John Violette, Maude, and Will were so close we chatted and caught up on things. (It was a shame we didn’t have wine and cheese.) The conversation quickly turned to skiing and we expressed the fun had at Sugarloaf this season, but they topped us with their tales of vacationing in British Columbia skiing at one of our favorite spots, Kicking Horse. We all commented on the Stairway to Heaven chairlift that provides a Heli Skiing-like experience with tree skiing on one side of Redemption Ridge and a selection of several steep chutes on the other. Ahh, such good peeps in the club, we take advantage of every situation to socialize and have a good time. No crying over spilt wind, but soon we were all wishing we had volunteered for the committee boat as the Peterson’s were in town spelling the committee boat with their very comfortable luxury pontoon liner. There aren’t many times I would rather be on a party boat than sailing, but this was one of them. I am sure Ben never faltered and fought that devilish thought, dead, stone dead, or did he?
Several minutes later we all moved a bit faster and the Gaylen Winds pulled ahead of the other boats and began to reel in Ben and Sam. There was this pesky 420 behind me captained by Max Krizo and crewed by his friend Burke, whom we just could not ditch. Every once in while they would pass us, but we always seemed to move right back in front. Max is a pretty good trash talker in a polite way. Never Again II, captained by Chris Bradley and crewed by Bradley Abbot, was running a smart race as well and seemed to be ahead of us on a tighter line toward the first pin. It appeared we had passed Ben, but I was not sure yet how it would play out at the first mark. MAX yelled out “Hah we have Ben”, to which I yelled back “MAX, never count out Ben Ford” Ben obviously had a plan and was looking at the winds just a bit differently than us. A half mile separated us laterally at one point as we tacked toward mark One, so it was still hard to tell who was ahead. Pete McManus and Nancy were taking a much wider approach and were way starboard of us, Pete is another guy you can’t count out.
We managed to get wing to wing working as we attacked the mark and could see Ben on a reach moving much faster and making up ground quickly. I kept saying to Lynne “He is going to beat us to mark isn’t he”? She kept replying “yes”. I was not getting the answer I wanted so I stopped asking. A little less than 60 seconds after Ben rounded the first mark we tacked and started to beat toward the Ledges. I thought we were gaining on Ben and could see Chris Bradley in Never Again II moving smartly on a closer haul and moving ahead of us. Motor assisted I chuckled to myself, hehe. Ben sailed very close toward Hoyt’s a quarter of mile past the Ledges mark before tacking but Lynne and I tacked much earlier. Chris had already rounded the second mark and was heading toward home. We took a very close haul to the second mark and would have made it if the wind had not completely died or shifted or both. (Yes, we all could say if, if, if…)
The Gaylen Winds and the 420 were now floundering and sailing backwards it seemed. We almost drifted into the Ledges hazard area, but a stingy breeze gave us just enough to move past them at less than walking speed. Max yelled out “Hey look Ben is in the doldrums”. The Queen Bee was hugging the shorelines past Baxter Point. As we looked ahead we could see both Chris and Ben’s sails flapping loosely with no visible forward movement. Oh, how frustrating sailing can be at times like these, a true testimony of the heartiness of sailors’ psychological makeup; truly focused and determined or one could say just a bit crazy, your choice. The other 5 sloops looked a mile behind us and did not seem to be making much better headway either.
For some reason the Gaylen Winds moved away from the 420 and continued to make progress going south but well to the port of the finish line. We could see Chris seemingly headed straight for the finish a quarter of mile ahead us. It looked like he had it won with Ben pinned off to his starboard much closer to the shoreline still getting the Horse Latitude treatment from the blocking shoreline trees. (In lieu of a horse Ben could have thrown Sam overboard. Sarah is glad that he didn’t.) Chris lost his brief bit of wind as well and had to veer off and tack back close to Ben. For several minutes it looked like the mating ritual of two alien species clumsily floundering about trying to figure out what end was which on each the others body, probably one of the few times a sloop rig doesn’t exactly grace the horizon. Max still in ear shot gleefully shouted out, maintaining his keen analysis for ongoing race commentary, “Look Ben and Chris are becalmed, and it looks like they are really stuck”. I love that kid.
Lynne and I sailed past the finish line a quarter of a mile out and a few hundred yards south before making our last tack. Lynne, for the 20th time said, “This is really getting tedious and I don’t think we will ever make it in, I’m going to swim in”. But before she pulled off her AWOL maneuvers I talked her out of it and calmly explained our plan. I told her all we need to win this race is for Ben and Chris to remain stuck in that hole while we pick up a 10-mph southwesterly (Nowhere in sight yet). “We can make up our quarter mile deficit just like that”! Of course, she laughed just before a hopeful breeze pushed us along, not quite 10 but better than zero and maybe 6 mph at moments, we steamed forward, relatively speaking, toward the finish with Chris and Ben still floundering.
About halfway in I could see Ben benefitting from “our” wind, how dare he? He sped forward at ¼ max hull speed but nevertheless it looked like he’d cross before us. Our reach was much faster than his beat however he had less distance to make up. All was lost when suddenly it appeared he was too tight to make the mark and tacked. My heart leapt up and I said, “Lynne we’ve got it”! From our angle I could not tell how by far he was missing the mark, but unfortunately for us not far enough as he quickly and smartly tacked back toward the finish. Although we were closing on him twice as fast and “wow” on a heel at last, he was significantly closer and just squeezed by the mark 8 seconds ahead of us without hitting it, err well there were no witnesses. Just kidding but close is what it’s all about in sailing.
As we crossed and could see Chris and Bradley about two minutes back gaining wind, but beyond that all the others were back by the ledges not yet catching some of the newly welcomed south westerlies. I figured they were all two beers and a hotdog away, but with Minutes in a two plus hour race you need to beat them by a six pack and a steak to overcome their handicap.
It was certainly a race for the socially well adjusted, otherwise some of the crew members would still be missing. In all seriousness congratulations to everyone that finished this race, it took true grit and will power to stay the course to the end.
A big congrats to Pete and Nancy in Imp for 1st and Tree, Elaine and Steve in Arcturus in second for a race well sailed. Also, to our socialite sailing mates the Violettes and Maude for logging in third, oops only John finished, apparently Will and Maude did what Lynne wanted to do and jumped overboard shortly after the start, then went water skiing.
I am guessing that if Ben and Chris didn’t hug the shoreline, ahem or the wind didn’t die and shift, they would have skunked us all by a lot regardless of handicaps, but that’s sailing folks. You just never know, you place your bets and takes your chances. We have all been there before, stuck in holes going nowhere watching our club mates on the other side of a channel sliding along nicely. Yes, its mainly skill in reading the winds and the waters, anticipating wind shifts etc., but lady luck has a great deal of sway in this game as well, and speaking of lady luck, man are we all damn lucky or what?!
Cheers to all,
Ex Commodore
Gibber
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