Worth the wait?
2002-06-13

Well, last night was a study in contrasts. The night started out pretty well and ended pretty well, but the middle, ah the middle...

I went on the road so of course I got home early and went straight to the boat in the hopes of scoring a dock. Docks on race night are extremely tough to come by, but getting there early helps. I had my choice, I pulled into the end of E dock and 80 footer. It was supposed to rain all day, but it was just cloudy, warm and sticky. Things were looking up.

I got the boat set up and went home to change and pick up M.E. The forecast was for light winds and I was hoping to put up the new sail, but I didn't take off the old one. It would have just brought bad luck and high winds.

M.E. came home, changed, she had a bite to eat (I never eat before a race) and off we went. We got about a block from the Yacht Club and the skies opened. We are talking serious flood rains here. The temp had also dropped 20 degrees and the gentle winds of the afternoon were now blowing 25+. Damn..

We dashed from the truck to the club awning and got soaked in the process.

All the racers were milling about, trying to stay dry and looking worried. I heard several on cell phones canceling their crew. I was worried too. In other times I might have cancelled too, but we already missed last week when I was sick. Missing the first two would have put us in a real box. Andy the Race Chair was there. I asked him if we were going to race inside (near the club, short courses) or outside (4 miles away, long courses). He said outside. I must have made a face, because he asked me what I thought. I told him if it was me I'd keep everybody inside and run short a very short race and get everybody back in as quickly as possible. A couple of people around agreed. He must have thought it was a good idea because thats what he did.

It was getting late. We ran through the rain to the the other building closer to where the boat was. It was cold, wet, windy and rainy. To top it off the whole crew was missing. I got a call from Bob and Laura. They were stuck in traffic in Providence and didn't know if they were going to make it. That made the decision easy, if they didn't show, we didn't go. We needed those two bodies.

M.E. and I went down to the boat to see if there was anybody there. There wasn't. A few minutes later Kerry and Brian showed up. We debate the weather. Martin and Maria call, they are in the bar but will be down soon. I'm pretty much resigned that we will sit yet another one out.

The rain starts to ebb, but the wind and the cold are still pretty bad. I open the hatch to watch all the boats leave. I'm sort of sad and yet strangely releaved. Then I see Bob and Laura pull up. It's late, real late, but we still have a chance to make it. I poll the crew. All yes votes, so I put on my rain pants and start the engine. Then we go like hell and try to make the start.

We get the mainsail up and try to get the course from the commitee boat. It takes us two tries. By this time our start is up. We are still getting stuff ready. I miss the first gun so now I don't have an accurate watch. UGH! I am a total ball of focused energy. We only have time for one run to the line and I'm late. So are two other boats and we are in a controling position. I take them up into the committe boat. I could have make one crash but I gave him room. Our biggest competitor has to bail out and do a 360. We hit the line third in bad air so we tack immediately. Ahh, clean air.. We sail on this tack for a few minutes and tack back. We are now in the lead. We hit the mark right on the money. The 42 we stuffed has recover to make it close. If he tacked right at the mark he probably is ahead of us. Instead he tries to get us to foul him. Bad move. We clear him by at least 5 feet and start to pull ahead. We stayed ahead too and widened our lead. We took the gun (first boat in each class gets a shotgun blast, all the hrest get a horn) and when the counting was done we took first overall too. 9 seconds over Occlusion, 34 seconds over evil 42. Our first first of the year and with the new boat. It felt good. All the crew was high fiving. We broke out beer, rolled up the jib and sailed. Until the rain came back. Then we dashed in, put stuff away and sat below swapping stories and pictures and potato chips.

We decided to call the launch and took the cold wet ride back to the club. I couldn't believe the number of people who congratulated us. I guess a lot of people were pulling for us to win. I'm not sure why, but it was nice. We had a few beers, and headed home early. I was tired, but it was a good tired. We ate, watched the Red Sox win and got to sleep early. Other than waking up coughing at 12:30 all in all a good night

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