The Plot Thickens

"When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door...." After our first day's sailing in the new regatta, we seemed to have things well in hand. We had contained Steve McNally, seemingly our major competitor; we had contained everyone else as well; we were ahead. Little did we know that days two and three would bring some serious new competition: Frederic Hayem.

Frederic is a not especially prepossessing man who sails with his wife as crew, and they always bring along their daughter, who is perhaps three or four years old. They give the appearance of being a nice, innocuous couple who thought it would be fun to go out and give sailing a try. That is, they seem that way until you actually race against them: They don't look as if they're trying all that hard or doing all that much, but early in the first leg you realize that they were right there a moment ago but now all you can see of them is their transom. It turns out, as I learned last evening, that in his native France (where they take sailboat racing seriously), Frederic was a professional sailboat racer.

We've sailed against him in the past, and actually defeated him — by one and some fraction points over the course of at least nine races. Even that involved taking advantage of some uncharacteristic mistakes on his part. We were glad to have him back. We view him as our real competition.

So: Day two. Three races among 10 boats (a much better turnout than on the first day). In the first race, we reached the starting line a few seconds early, but there was room to run down it, and we got a good start with clear wind. Near the top of the upwind leg, though, we were on starboard and would need to tack onto port at the lay line. Another boat had positioned itself so that, although a bit behind us, it was to windward on starboard, and we couldn't tack without fouling it. We had to sail several boat lengths beyond the lay line before we gained enough of a margin to cross in front of the other boat, and the extra distance gave Frederic (who was sailing on the other side of the course) the room he needed to reach the upwind mark first. We were second, and after a leg of downwind sailing, that's how we ended: Frederic first, us second.

Then the wheels came off (if you can use that metaphor for a vehicle that doesn't have wheels to begin with). In the second race we got clogged up among several other boats at the start, never got clear air, and came in seventh. Frederic was second. What was worse, a guy named Ricard Simons, who was 1.25 points behind us after the first day, finished four places ahead of us in this race; he now led the regatta. In the third race, we got gummed up at the start once again, but at least were able to use a leeward-boat trick to send Ricard off on the wrong side of the committee boat — he missed the starting line completely and had to come back. We ended fifth; Ricard was ninth; we were once again in the overall lead. Frederic — need I say it? — finished first.

Day three: Once again, three races among 10 boats. In the first, we had a good (although not especially distinguished) start in clear air, sailed well upwind, and found ourselves rounding the upwind mark...once again second, behind Frederic. This time however, we were only perhaps a boat length behind, with a serious chance of catching him. And indeed, we were able to take some of his wind, establish an overlap, and continue to gain, but we ran out of room; he beat us by perhaps a quarter of a boat length.

In race two, another good start, and good position midway up the first leg, but somehow for a time I couldn't point the boat quite as high as others (don't know why), and we lost some ground. Frederic rounded the mark first, another boat second, and we rounded essentially tied with our old pal Steve McNally — we could have reached the mark slightly before him, but in such a way that the rules required us to give him room, and that enabled him to get between us and the mark and catch us. So for us, the downwind leg was a race for third place. Steve stayed on starboard and we gibed onto port; we were to his right. Our boat speed was identical, and he used his starboard-boat right of way to push us gradually farther to the right, not realizing that I had an ace up my sleeve: the more he pushed us, the more he pushed himself to the right of a direct course to the finish. He would have to gibe onto port to fetch the finish line, and once he did, the right-of-way advantage would go to us as leeward boat. That's just what happened; I pushed him farther upwind than he wanted to go; no more than two seconds before we reached the pin end of the line, I turned directly downwind (a move he couldn't make without fouling me) to push my bow over; I'd guess that we beat him by about a centimeter. It was so close that none of us knew which boat had crossed ahead; we had to sail over to the race committee boat and ask. (By the way, guess who took first in the race? Frederic.)

Race three: A not-so-good start. We were to windward of Steve, who tried to use his leeward-boat position to push us over early (and very nearly succeeded). When things settled just after the start, we seemed to be in perhaps fifth or sixth place and in foul wind, so we tacked onto port. So did four other boats, of which two went back onto starboard and crossed ahead of us. (Other boats that hadn't gone onto port to begin with were ahead of us on the other side of the course.) We tacked onto starboard a little while later, found ourselves alone (Steve was to windward of us at one point but tacked away; thanks Steve!), finally tacked onto the port-tack lay line expecting to be way behind, and were astonished to discover that everyone else was approaching the line on starboard and we were in position to cross ahead of every one of them except Frederic. It was magic, I think. Ross and I literally looked at each other and asked, "How did that happen?" And second is where we stayed until the race ended. (Guess who won?)

Scoring technicalities: For each race you miss, you are given all possible points (10 in our case, because the largest number of boats competing in a given race was 10) plus two. Because Frederic had missed the first day of racing — the first three races — we technically finished ahead of him (I think by one point). However, there was no way we were going to accept a first-place trophy ahead of a guy whom we had not beaten and who had taken five firsts and a second in his only six races. So before the awards presentation we had a quiet word with the race committee and were happy to accept a second place for the May series. What's more, we discovered that Harbor Sailboats decided to combine the April and May racing into a single Spring Series, and we had no qualms about accepting the first-place trophy for that. Here it is: