Sailors delight....
2002-08-22

BANG! The sound of a shotgun firing in the air. To most people it is a sound to be ignored, or feared. To a sailboat racer, it is the best sound in the world. The shotgun is used to start that race and it is also used for the first boat to finish in a class. First one in gets a gun to announce to all that someone in your class has finished and it wasn't you. All the rest of the finishers just get a blast from an airhorn. Ahh, the gun :-) We've had one three out of the last four weeks now. If I hadn't blown the finish last week, it could have been four in a row and this series would be over, but that is forgotten now. The gun, I'm still smiling.

We knew what was at stake last night. We needed a win and needed it badly. The race I missed at the begining of the season and the two 5's we sucked up because of stuff breaking put us in a deep hole that we have been slowly digging out of. Last night we had a full crew, I even had Jim and Mush on board, two of my old regulars who are coming back to the fold next year. The bottom was clean, the water tanks empty and the boat set up. We were ready. READY!

Starting a sailboat race is stressful. As I've said before these things don't have brakes and when you are trying to squeeze too many boats in not enough space, it does get interesting. I'll admit it I was nervous. My stomach was doing flip flops and I felt like I was going to barf. The adrenaline rush is tremendous. We made our way to the starting line and looked for a hole. Usually things are pretty organized and it is easy to decide what to do. Last night things were confused. We realized that most of the boats were late and that we were going to be too. Too late for fancy stuff. I told the crew to harden the sails and we just headed for the line. I didn't care where we were as long as we were there. We eneded up crossing second, behind and below Occlusion the series leader up to that point. They were in a good place, but we were faster. I had Bob ease the jib and we headed down and powered through them like they were standing still. Evil42 had another bad start and they were deep. We headed to the left and started pulling away from the pack. Evil 42 was on the same tack sailing higher and faster. Not a good sign.... Then... they went right. I know that normal local knowledge says go right in an incoming tide and it was a full moon, but we had the class in front of us to look at. Left was the way to go and the further left you carried, the better you are. We banged that left side for all it was worth. When we tacked back Evil 42 was still struggling on the right. We flew through the middle. We were going so fast that we caught up with the fleet in front of us. I was so focused, totally in a zone. Except for the tacks I don't think i moved the wheel more than an inch during any point on the upwind leg. We got to the mark and had to duck a new 41 footer from the spinnaker class. We rounded, had a perfect pole set and were gone. Evil 42 rounded a couple of minutes after us, had problems with the pole and were never really a threat. All we had to do was hang on, not make any mistakes and this one was ours, and we did.... Our jibe was perfect, the pole take down at the finish was the best of the year. We finished at the can got the gun and started to count off the time. One minute, two minutes, three minutes, finally beeeep. Evil 42 was done. They never got close to us on the way home and kind of slunk away tail between their legs. Psycologically we have them whipped. They know we are better and you can't believe how satisfying that is. he told me at the begining of the season we'd never win a race in this boat. Right.... We kept counting, 5, 6, 7, 8 after 9 minutes with no other finishers we knew we had won. We broke out the beers and people were high fiving. This crew has really come together. What a great group of people. We sailed back under a red sky and the now full moon celebrating and talking old times. Just a wonderful night... a wonderful night. We got back just in time to hear the announcements. Class B, First place High Maintaninece. Our crew cheered, and then we celebrated some more. With one race to go, we now lead the series for the first time this year. It is really close. We have ten points, Occlusion has 10.5 and Evil42 has 10.75. Next week will be winner take all. We'll be ready.

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