Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Asylum

The worst night of racing I've had in seventeen years just occurred. There wasn't anything I, or anyone else could do right. Most people see sailboats offshore barely moving along and think, "How boring that must be. Look how slow they're moving". Well, let me tell you it's a different story when you are out there. One wrong move and everything goes to shit in a hurry. We couldn't make the weather mark, but instead of tacking away early, we tried like hell to eek it out. Didn't work. Took a header close to the mark, then tried to tack away, without hitting it. We fell into irons, and stalled out at the mark in front of thirty five other boats barreling down the line. Oh God what a mess. We managed to slip out of the way of the carnage, and all the cursing and crunching fiberglass. At this point, we should have just pointed towards Canada, and asked for asylum. This was only the beginning of our trouble. The spinnaker set and jibe went well, but the jib never made it past the tangled pole, and the take down was more like a wrestling match with giant rainbow colored marshmallow man. We came in dead last. They were picking up the marks as we went past them.




Look like fun? I know a skipper who is probably looking for crew :(