A couple of weeks before the Around Long Island Race I got a call from Arch. When I had helped him sail his boat this spring from Eastern Long Island, where he keeps it in the winter, to Port Washington, where he lives and sails, we had discussed the ALIR and our disappointment that Peggy probably wouldn’t be entering Reality in the race this year due to other commitments. When he called me, he said that he would racing in the ALIR with his friend and client Bob who he had previously done the race with. I quickly cleared my schedule and called him back saying “Hell yes! I’d love to go!”
He invited me to come out to Huntington Harbor, where Bob keeps the boat, and do an Wednesday evening race the week before the ALIR. Now in Port Washington, where I grew up, they have the "Thirsty Thursday" series, a somewhat low key set of races on summer Thursday nights which involves sailing around buoys in the bay and repairing to the yacht club bar to tell sailing stories. Although Huntington has a similar "Beer Can" series on Thursday nights, the Wednesday races, I came to learn, are quite a bit more serious.
Instead of the Thursday night exercise of sailing around various existing buoys in a course selected by the race committee, the Wednesday series was an upwind-downwind course, where the race committee set a large inflatable marker directly upwind of the committee boat. The course was to the upwind mark, downwind back to the starting line, to the upwind mark again, and back to the committee boat to finish. On the downwind legs, the boats could use spinnakers, the large, colorful, parachute-like sails (another difference from the Thirsty Thursday series, which doesn't allow them). If the wind holds in a constant direction, the first leg is directly upwind, the second is directly downwind, the next upwind and the last downwind. If the wind shifts, all bets are off.
This makes for an interesting race because you can't sail directly upwind. Instead, to get upwind you have to zig-zag back and forth 30-45 degrees to either side of the wind, a process known as beating or tacking into the wind. Once you reach the upwind mark, you turn around and put up the spinnaker, a rather complex process, and sail downwind. If the wind holds, you drop the spinnaker, turn around to beat upwind again, turn around and reset the spinnaker, finishing downwind.
We had a large number of people aboard, including some of Bob's regular crew who wouldn't be joining us for the ALIR. They took the opportunity to teach us the boat and its systems. I somehow got apprenticed to Tom, the regular foredeck man, and helped him set the sails. As Bob explained, this short race would likely involve more activity and sail changing than the ALIR, and he was pretty close to right. I had never set a spinnaker before, so it was quite a learning experience.
We sailed around for a while before the start, learning the boat and getting into position. Just before the starting gun for our class was sounded, we were in a pretty good spot, behind one end of the starting line. We were slowing down the boat so we wouldn't start too early, but there was a boat just behind us. Under the sail racing rules, if that boat's bow overlapped our stern we would be required to keep clear of her at the starting mark, so our slowing down in front of her would be considered a violation. If there was no overlap, however, there would be no violation.
As the starting gun was about to sound, the crew of the boat behind was yelling at us that they were overlapped, and we had to give way. We yelled back that we weren't, and the "are not", "are too" continued for a few seconds until the starting gun sounded, when we both pulled away. The other boat's crew yelled that they were going to protest our action, and raised the red code flag indicating that they were sailing under protest.
In sail racing, a protest can be resolved in several ways. If both vessels think they were correct, the protesting vessel will file a formal report, and the matter will be heard after the race by the protest committee. If the committee finds a violation, it can penalize the violator, up to and including disqualification from the race. In lieu of going before the protest committee, a boat that wants to admit its violation and avoid potential disqualification may, in certain instances, "purge" the protest by sailing a 720 degree turn, two consecutive 360 degree circles.
After some discussion, we decided that we didn't really think that there was an overlap, but that we would do a 720 degree turn anyway to be safe. We spent the time to go around twice, and then continued on to the upwind mark. As we approached the mark, Tom explained to me what was necessary to be done to raise the spinnaker, and I watched and helped as he put it up. We had a lovely run downwind, and Tom explained the procedure to take the spinnaker down, showing me as we rounded the downwind mark. We again beat upwind, and for this rounding, I put up the spinnaker with a great deal of assistance from Tom. As we were sailing downwind toward the finish, the wind dropped and shifted, and I did the foredeck work to take the spinnaker down. Unfortunately I removed the spinnaker guy from the pole leaving it attached to the tack of the sail, rather than detaching the guy from the tack, which slowed down the process a bit. After a bit of running back and forth, the problem was soon rectified.
A word on Bob's management style is appropriate here. When Bob wants something to get done promptly while racing, he tends to exclaim loudly and forcefully what should be done. When he realizes that he's been doing this, he feels that in order for the tone of his abrupt orders not to be misconstrued, he must yell, "I'm not yelling!" This has become something of a running joke aboard. In actuality, when racing he wants things to be done promptly and correctly, and will yell out what needs to be done, but it's never directed at the crew and there's never any anger when things get screwed up (as they inevitably will sometimes when sailing). He's always ready to explain himself and do a quick post-mortem to solve the underlying problem once the moment of crisis has passed. In short, when he yells that he isn't yelling, in fact, he isn't yelling.
We weren't far from finishing when the wind got light, which was also just about as it got dark out. The wind shift had put the finish line upwind of us, so we tacked back and forth to slowly try to work our way up to the finish. We almost made it on one tack, but realized that the current would make us drift down on the committee boat, which was anchored as one end of the finish line. We tacked over to avoid the committee boat, and had a short, pleasant chat with the folks aboard about the race.
In the light air, it took quite a while to tack back over the finish line. When we crossed, we expected to hear a horn, but didn't. We enquired of the committee boat, and they mentioned that the time to complete the race had expired just a few minutes before. Frustrated about having tacked to avoid the committee boat and chatted with its crew who didn't mention that time was expiring (quite properly, I suppose), we asked if we could have a horn anyway, but the committee boat demurred. In a bit of irony, the 720 degree turn we did to avoid the potential that we might be disqualified after a protest hearing (which we didn't think would happen) probably cost us the few minutes that would have allowed us to finish the race before time expired.
Toward the end of the race, I realized another significant difference between sailing the Huntington Wednesday night race aboard Diane and the Thirsty Thursday series on Reality. On Reality, sandwiches for the crew were part of the picture (with Peggy, food is always part of the picture), but on Diane dinner was not included. Arch didn't realize this either, or else we would have stopped to pick up a quick bite before coming out to Huntington. When we finished, we were hungry, but had to get back to Port Washington so I could make a late train back to New York. Fortunately, I made it with enough time to grab a couple of slices of reheated pizza from the place across from the station, which I ate aboard the train as it headed into the City. As I munched away, I began to look forward more and more the challenge of the Around Long Island Race.
