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

[Mike Meinhold via Public-List]

Arrogant Swagger, Incredulous Surprise, Black Looks....

I would add Patient Disdain as my favorite bowman's attitude when I was the
old man doing foredeck on J Berquist's Calliope #287 with his highly
variable crew of twenty-something novices.

Mike
Rinn Duin #272


Mike
Michael J. Meinhold 301 852 0619 meinhold272 at gmail.com

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 9:07 AM, Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net> 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
>
>