Another Sailing Story

And this one involves mayhem on only a slightly smaller scale than Ross had to offer.

Last Saturday, after I’d done no sailing for an appallingly long month, Capri 22 racing finally resumed. There was, however, a twist — we would share our race course with another class of boat, the Flying Tiger.

This is a boat with an interesting history. Apparently someone had a yen to design a pure racer that would nevertheless be “affordable” (always a relative term in sailing). In part, the cost-saving measures involved building the boat in China. But, long before the boat was available, or even designed, word of it leaked out to Sailing Anarchy, a web site devoted to sailing and based in San Diego. One thing led to another and before long, people were submitting design ideas to the web site, and (at least in the public version of events) a lot of those ideas made it into the boat. So it may be the first web-designed sailboat.

At any rate, the guy who owns Harbor Sailboats (named Tom Hirsh) bought two of the first ten FTs to be made. Two other San Diegans also bought one each. The boats arrived quite recently, and (I’m guessing here) Tom figured that as long as he was setting up a race course for the Capri 22s, the FTs might as well also use it.

The FTs are vastly faster than the Capri 22s; they’re about 33 feet long at get up to (I’m told) 15 knots in not all that much breeze. So they were to start first, and our start was to be five minutes later. So as we (“we” being Emma and I, by the way) milled about downwind of the starting line, we had a perfect view of their start (and here comes the mayhem part). With about 10 seconds to the gun, two were right alongside one another, approaching the committee boat, when the upwind one suddenly rounded up and rammed the committee boat! I thought at first it was just bad sailing, but then realized I could see the boat’s helmsman holding on to the tiller, but the rudder itself was flailing about in the water; it had literally torn off the transom! Apparently (I didn’t see this part) the same thing happened to a second boat a short way up the first leg. (Tom was the only one to escape damage.) So much for boats on the cheap. Or, so much for web-designed boats. Or maybe both!

With the FTs out of commission, there were still Capri 22s to race — eight of us in all. The wind was blowing about 15 knots, which is pretty strong for those little boats. Emma finished the day with sore arms. We sailed a random-leg course on which the first leg was almost a straight, close-hauled, starboard-tack course. But not quite; and having found ourselves in the middle of the pack at the start, we were the earliest to realize the need for short port tack, took it before anyone else and gained clear air, and by the time we reached the first mark, we had taken the lead. It was a lead we never relinquished, although when we finished we were only half a boat length ahead of the second-place finisher. There were two more races, in which we finished fourth and third, and all our finishes were close; in the last race in particular, the difference between us and the second-place boat was no more than six inches.

It was our friend Steve McNally finishing first in each of the second and third races, for a first place overall. Emma and I finished second overall, with two more days of racing left. Can’t think of a better way to spend a November Saturday!