The big enchilada
2002-09-03

OK, ok, I'll get to the race stuff. After serious self medication, M.E. and I prep the boat for racing. We take off the cruising sail and set up the furler for racing, get all the lines set up, hose things down and ice up the cooler. Actually, M.E does a good chunk of this because I still can't move. UGH! I try and take a nap in the vee berth and hope things will get better.

Evil 42 doesn't know we are racing. They think we are out on vacation and won't be back. One of the crew bumps into their skipper. He says, what are you doing here and the crew replies, I'm here to kick your ass. Evil's captain says, but Ron is on vacation and the crew says... Not tonight he isn't. The color drains from Evils skippers face...

All the crew is there early and we head out on time for a change. As the adreneline of the pre-race starts to kick in, I start to forget about my back. As long as I can hold out for an hour and a half, we'll be fine. We get the course and set up a plan. I don't give the crew a speach like I have sometimes before. They already know what is at stake and don't need to be wound up any more than they are.

The gun goes off and we hit the line perfectly... Nobody follows... UM, WHAT THE F IS GOING ON? Not cool. We head back for the line. Apparently they delayed our class start, but no flags or guns are used as required. They just announce it on the radio. We didn't hear it. We are now royally screwed. I don't have a watch set, we don't know when the start is. Finally we hear a horn... The one minute warning. We are in a really bad spot and just head for the line and hope for the best. It isn't good enough. We are late and end up fourth boat off. Evil42 has his best start of the year and we are in deep trouble.

The only saving grace of the situation is that I want to go right and with all these boats ahead, it is easy finding a lane. Evil 42 likes left and hangs there longer than he should. When we cross tacks, I would have been happy to just be close, but we aren't. We are ahead by half a lenght. Cool..

He hit the mark perfectly and round. We see EVil 42 misjudged the line and has to tack twice more. We add to our lead. The crew is totally focused, well except for our main trimmer who is totally spacing out. The crew is on him to pay attention. Me too.

It is the only conversation. Everybody is working hard, trying to wring every 10th of a knot out of the boat. We round the bottom mark 30 seconds ahead. We go right. Evil follows. The he goes left and we tack to cover. He goes right and again we tack to cover. We stay between him and the wind. He isn't going to get lucky like two weeks ago.

The finish line come up and there isn't enough race course for Evil. We get the gun. Both the crew and a bunch of the RC cheer. So now the worst we can do is second. Someone asks if we have champagne. We do and kill a magnum on the way back. People on the deck are congratualating us and so do a few RC people. One winks... It looks good. They announce the results on the PA system. Our class is next to last. It is pretty quiet, most of the classes have been wrapped up already so not much cheering. We hear Occlusion get announced 3rd.. then we know...Evil 42 2nd.... and yeah us, first...for the night and for the series. The whole place yells. It was so cool. People were buying me drinks and telling me how glad they were that we had won. We partied way into the night and then fell asleep in the aft cabin. It was all good. Even Evil 42's captain said nice race. Will wonders never cease?

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