[Public-List] Last race of the season...

[Gordon Laco via Public-List]

Hi Mike - 

Yes, Midland Bay Sailing Club.

When my son Pete started doing foredeck, I told him that the hall mark of a
truly good foredeck man is a bit of an arrogant swagger.  He should execute
all orders from the stodgy bunch in the cockpit, but at the same time be
able to summon a look of incredulous surprise or wordlessly be able to
transmit ‘sure I’ll do a gybe for you, but you do realize it’s almost too
late...’ sort of facial expression to flash astern.

We laughed and laughed at the famous collision scene in the yacht racing
movie ‘Wind’.   Have you seen it?  The protagonist’s yacht and the bad guy’s
yacht are savagely crossing tacks in a hard beat to windward... The
tactician is telling the skipper to hold on although he’s on port because
‘you’re gunna make it, hold your course, hang on!’   The skipper, full of
doubt, responds ‘we’re not gunna make it!’ .. ‘yes you are, hang on..’ and
so on.  Then the camera goes to the foredeck man who looks calmly at the
approaching yacht, swivels his gaze sadly toward his own squabbling cockpit
crew, then shakes his head, no doubt mumbling to himself ‘idiots, we’re not
gunna make it’.    Perfect foredeck man’s distain for the usual confusion in
the back end of the boat...

My son Pete’s finest exhibition of this was at the end of a heavy air race a
few years ago.  This time we did have the spinnaker up, but for no known
reason had a slack vang resulting in a bad twist in the main.  SURPRISE was
running dead downwind for the finish sailing really fast and the top part of
the main, twisted way round was shoving the masthead to windward ( opposite
the side the boom was on)  The boat started rolling, the dips to port and
starboard getting heavier and heavier, aided at the start by  the twisted
main, then by the spinnaker which wanted to join in the fun by swinging port
and starboard.  We cranked down the vang and choked the spinnaker’s sheet
and guy but much too late and we crossed the line pretty much out of
control.  I shouted that we were going to douse the spinnaker by ‘running
the guy’ rather than popping the shackle at the end of the pole.  To put the
spinnaker in a lee, we unfurled the genoa and I let SURPRISE round up a
little intending that we’d pull the spinnaker in under the boom....  Well
SURPRISE took matters into her own hands and as soon as I let her go a
little to starboard, she shot us way up and heeled over a long way.  I tried
to steer us down back under the spinnaker again but of course she just kept
rounding up.  Then I noticed that the guy wasn’t running... ‘hmm’ thought,
‘the guy must be jammed’.  By this time we were well knocked down with the
leeward winches under water.  I shouted forward ‘cast off the spinnaker
halyard!’  and that’s when Pete said his line.  I couldn’t see him behind
the main, but his voice came back quite calmly saying ‘ah, can’t just now’.
I asked why not... His head popped sideways around the mast and he said
‘BECAUSE I’M STANDING ON THE PORT STROUDS!’  He was up to his thighs in
water, standing on the shrouds, which were nearly horizontal.

At that point I looked behind me and saw Lynn, one of our regular
crewmembers, hanging onto the guy with big round eyes.  I said to you ‘Hey
Lynn, let go of that, would you?’   She did, the guy whipped away off the
winch, through it’s block and the end of the spinnaker pole...  The
spinnaker deflated, SURPRISE popped upright and we recovered the sail.

So, aboard SURPRISE when a command comes from the cockpit that the foredeck
crew judge is too late, silliy, or impossible, either Peter or Steve up
forward calls back with calm deep voices ‘ah, can’t just now’.


On 2015-10-15, 8:05 AM, "Mike Meinhold" <meinhold272 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Gord,
> Great story and I can picture your crew and the grumbling from the foredeck.
>   I am trying to follow your tale (and your older tales in the archives) on a
> chart - which is your club? Is it Midland Bay Sailing Club?
> 
> Mike
> Rinn Duin #272
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mike
> Michael J. Meinhold 301 852 0619 meinhold272 at gmail.com
> 
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:48 PM, George Dinwiddie via Public-List
> <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:
>> Thanks, Gord. It's refreshing to hear a sailing story on the list. ;-)
>> 
>> On 10/14/15 8:57 AM, Gordon Laco via Public-List wrote:
>>> Hello gang,
>>> 
>>> Our club¹s had it¹s last race of the season ­ in contrast with the one the
>>> week before, this one was a real cracker with heavy air from the east, not a
>>> common direction in our latitude (44N).
>>> 
>>> The fleet was much thinned out, partly perhaps by the decision to run a long
>>> ŒSnake Island and back¹ instead of the usual course race.  At the 5pm
>>> skipper¹s meeting there was dissension over the fact that we¹d be returning
>>> in the dark due to the shortening days... One boat didn¹t have running
>>> lights (a Shark of course) so we all sighed and decided on a shortened
>>> course running from the entrance to the club to M20 (the red pin marking
>>> Midland Shoal) and back, twice.
>>> 
>>> So out we all went, bucketing along under power into the short steep chop
>>> the east wind was piling into our end of the harbour, which is at the
>>> western extremity of Severn Sound.  Noticing a shouted conversation going on
>>> over at the committee boat, we sauntered over and learned that the course
>>> was being shortened to only once out and back... Rats.
>>> 
>>> We got our main up, and after a discreditable bit of confusion on the part
>>> of our otherwise competent foredeck team over which cringle was the
>>> cunningham, and which the first reef tack (yes), we shut down the engine
>>> started sailing.
>>> 
>>> You can imagine my surprise when we heard a horn which was reported
>>> confidently as the five minute, then saw the fleet start it¹s stampede for
>>> the line... It was the one minute.  We¹d missed the whole shebang of flags
>>> and horns.  We made a wild gybe and broad reached down to the start at over
>>> seven knots and rounded to cross two minutes behind the fleet.  Oh well...
>>> 
>>> The course to the pin was a buck we could almost lay...  Poor SURPRISE was
>>> slamming occasionally in the short steep seas but we got her up to 5.5knots
>>> which wasn¹t bad considering the conditions.  Once a combination lift and
>>> gust laid us down to put the leeward winches under water before the main
>>> could be eased... And when it was popped, I saw it only ease a bit before
>>> the end of the boom was in the water...  My son Pete shouted ³well I guess
>>> winches have had their annual servicing¹.   We got up to where we could tack
>>> over onto port and lay the pin, we found we¹d caught up with our rivals and
>>> were less than a minute behind them.
>>> 
>>> We closed on the pin picturesquely with spray flying all over and shook our
>>> reef on the fly.  My foredeck guys shouted back to the cockpit ŒSPINNAKER?¹
>>> Now here was a quandary.
>>> 
>>> Before the race I¹d spoken with our arch rival, Matt Thurley in SUNDANCER
>>> (Pearson 28) and since he had only one person for crew that day I¹d agreed
>>> for our last battle of the season we wouldn¹t use Œchutes.   Well here we
>>> were at the windward mark, having caught up heroically on the beat and there
>>> was SUNDANCER just ahead trudging along under white sails... We could have
>>> come up astern with our spinnaker, and after asphyxiating him in our wind
>>> shadow, surged past and won the last battle....  I couldn¹t do it to him.
>>> Oh the black looks I got from my tigers up on the foredeck....  Later they
>>> told me that despite having the agreement described to them, at the time
>>> they thought I¹d lost confidence in them over the errors they made tucking
>>> in the reef before the race.... I smoothed their feathers.  We surged over
>>> the finish behind SUNDANCER...
>>> 
>>> So the last race was over in about 30 minutes.  We¹d not quite made up the
>>> two minutes we lost by starting late, but as I observed so many times before
>>> in so many races... If only we¹d had a better start, the catching up we did
>>> manage would have been Œpulling ahead¹ and we¹d have been covered in glory.
>>> Maybe next year...
>>> 
>>> We¹ve got the Misery Trip coming up next... It looks like it¹s happening on
>>> the 30 October weekend....
>>> 
>>> Gord #426 Surprise
>>>