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

[Wes Gardner via Public-List]

Great story...this just so true:-)

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 15, 2015, at 9:07 AM, Gordon Laco via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
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