They're Off!

A weird realization: A few years back, if I could have written “Out of thirteen boats, we finished tied for first,” I would have written it in all uppercase letters and thrown a couple of exclamation points behind it. These days, I think, “Well, that was fun, but we’ve got some work to do in the rest of this series.”

With the advent of daylight savings, the Harbor Sailboats Tuesday evening racing has started up again. Missing from the competitors were some old favorites: Steve McNally, that servant of the people, needs to attend SD city council meetings on Tuesdays (he’s the principal aide to a city councilman), and Traci Miller was who knows where? There were lots of new racers.

There was also serious competition: First, Harbor Sailboats itself put a boat in this race, skippered by Logan McDuffy, an actual professional captain. (A twenty-something kid as well, a refugee from New York, and an absolute delight.)

Perhaps more important, there was the new nemesis — Clay Karmel. He entered the fleet fairly recently. We’ve beaten him (“we,” of course, being Ross and me), and he’s beaten us — the latter (if I remember correctly) when we were penalized severely for missing races while attending to more important things on Long Beach Island. Most recently, he beat Steve in a series in which Ross and I were unable to race. Our principal goal — BEAT CLAY!!

As we sailed before the first race, we felt that the right side of the course was favored early — on starboard, immediately off the line, we were pointed almost directly at the upwind mark — but midway up the leg, a serious header set in. So as long as a boat stayed right early, it would be in a commanding position midway up the first beat. Or so we thought, but others didn’t — both Logan and Clay went left off the start. Turned out we were right — we got a good start, and our only company on the right side (although quite close company) was a boat sailed by one of the regulars (a guy named Arnaud). After some tussling, we established a lee-bow advantage on him and pulled ahead. Logan — the leader over on the left side — tacked and came at us, but we crossed ahead, tacked to cover him, tacked again and reached the mark first. THERE’S NO BETTER FEELING!!! (Oh, wait, control yourself.) If starboard early is favored going up, then port late is favored going down, so we reached off to the right side initially, gybed about midway down, and finished first. Logan was second, and Clay was third.

The strategy worked so well the first time, we tried it again in the second race. Worked just as well, even though the race committee decided, in mid race, to recognize the “funkiness” of the course and change the location of the finish line. (Mid race course changes are done all the time, by the way.) This time we were first and Clay was second.

An incendiary aside: As we milled about between races, a guy from another boat dissed my hat. My Sunfish hat. He said I’d worn it last year and it was time to give it a rest. DUDE, I BELONG TO MSYC AND THAT’S THAT!!!!!!!!! (Whoa, calm down….)

So — the wind changes, the tide changes, the course changes, and racers should change with them, and so we did, but not quite enough. At this point, we had not been behind any boat at any point in either race, and again we reached the first mark ahead. This time, though, Clay was close enough that the rounding involved some comments about room-at-the-mark rights. The wind was now rather fluky at that upper mark and it had cost us. Even so, we rounded ahead and lost it on the downward leg. Ross was gracious enough to say that there were perhaps some irregularities in the crew work, but in fact we were ahead and Clay sailed faster and that was either a very bizarre wind effect or, more likely, the combination of my steering and mainsail trim. Result: Clay first and us second, by about a foot. It was a really fun race.

Last race, three legs, and some newbie had the race of her life. Don’t even know her. After finishing last in the first race, ninth in the second race, and seventh in the third race, she improved considerably in the fourth: she led at the first mark and she led at the second mark and she looked real comfortable on the third leg. We were second at the upwind mark, and Clay a close third, but after some downwind fumbling those positions were reversed at the downwind mark. On the third leg we engaged Clay in a tacking duel in the hope of passing him; he covered us exactly as he should; and unfortunately Newbie reverted to form. In the end, Clay passed Newbie a foot or so before the finish line, and we came in third.

So in the end, Clay and we were tied exactly: 6.5 points apiece, and each with two finishes ahead of the other. Logan was in third, and no one else close.

OUT OF THIRTEEN BOATS, WE FINISHED TIED FOR FIRST!!!! Calm down? Hell no, it was too much fun.