Boy, Do I Feel Guilty

After all, there you east coast folks are, suffering the cruel torments of winter, even fur-coated cats huddled up for warmth. You send photos and reports of boats buried almost to the point of being lost under snow. And what do I do about it?

Go sailing, of course.

"What?!" you say. "Aren't you injured?!" Well, yes, I suppose so, but I had signed up for a race some time before I fell off the ladder, and I was really looking forward to it, and I'd had almost two full weeks to recuperate. And besides, it's not like I would be crewing; as helmsman I was just going to sit in the stern and hold a tiller. All of which is to say that I guess I'm feeling a fair bit better than I was.

So, to the race details. Last Saturday, we had another of the Capri 22, around-the-channel-markers, all-over-San-Diego-Bay races — something like 10 to 12 nautical miles. My regular crew was notably absent; given that he was taking his Basic Keelboat class, one has to assume he will be not only absent from my boat, but also a competitor from now on. Cool! Fortunately, I was able to replace him, temporarily at least, with my first-string crew, a true old salt, the pro from Dover: Emma.

The early going was inauspicious: a so-so start and less-than-perfect sail trim left us in sixth place out of nine boats at the first mark. The second leg, a reach, saw no changes in position. But the third leg was long, and about five degress off a true run. The three lead boats — for what reason even they couldn't say later on — went way over to the left of the course. The next three of us took a straight-line track for the mark, Emma and I got our boat cookin', passed the two boats sailing with us, and reached the next mark in first place.

The next leg was even more directly down wind, and at this point the wind, previously brisk, dropped to almost nothing. Our speed (and everyone else's) varied from one to one and a half knots. (There was also a need to make way for a tug pulling two enormous barges, but that affected everyone about evenly.) Eventually the wind picked up again but, as tends to be the case on downwind legs, filled in from behind and brought everyone up to us before it started us moving again. We rounded the extreme downwind leg in second.

From here it was several miles of close-hauled sailing to the finish line, and Emma came into her own. (Although for the sake of accuracy I have to say that she also winged the jib beautifully on the downwind legs.) Every tack saw a crisp set of the jib, Emma haulin' hard, cleatin' down, and getting herself out on the rail. Midway along, the race had come down to us and one other boat, skippered by a guy named Jon Miyata. He was a little ahead, and time and again we would near the point of passing him only to be trapped in his wind shadow and fall behind.

Now Jon and I have sailed together on several long-distance ocean races and know each other well. So, naturally, as we battled one another we exchanged a bit of good-natured trash talk. At one point I warned him that if he paid too much attention to keeping me slow, someone might come from behind and pass us both. And sure enough another boat (call it the "mystery boat"; I don't know its skipper) did begin to move up; Jon, perhaps with my warning in mind, broke off to cover him; with our air suddenly clear we surged ahead and won. The mystery boat finished about 10 seconds later, and Jon about 10 seconds after that, consoled in the knowledge that any race is a good race when you finish ahead of Steve McNally (who was a distant fourth).

A fine way to spend a January day. Come to think of it, I don't feel so guilty after all.