Failing Race

The boat feels small today. It’s amazing just how quickly my perspective changes. Growing up, I spent time on ski boats and party pontoons, and my family even owned a little cabin cruiser for a couple of years. At that time, a twenty-four-foot boat seemed luxurious. All last semester, I felt lucky and privileged to go out on the water on a 24-foot sloop like this one every day. My twenty-four feet of freedom had felt spacious.

We’ve been sailing a 62-foot sloop for weeks, though. Hannah, Ben, James, and I are bumping into each other as we ready the J-24 for the big race, rigging the lines and prepping the sails. But after a few minutes of stumbling, we recover our ability to work with less leg room, and muscle memory takes over. When we are all set to slip the mooring lines, I realize I’ve gotten so comfortable with mundane tasks that I’ve forgotten I’m not manning my usual position on the bow today. James politely kicks me off the foredeck so I can take my place at the tiller.

It’s a breezy afternoon, so we’re in for a sporty day. Our coach scouted out the course, and the race committee set the buoys in close today, with the leeward mark tight up next to the seawall. Our normally twenty-minute transit to the racecourse will be cut significantly as we angle our way out of the basin under just the jib. With a practiced ease, we launch the mainsail in seconds as I round us through the wind to point us in the direction of the starting line, the breeze coming straight down the bay from the northwest. Behind and ahead, the rest of the fleet, a gaggle of small racing yachts in the local clubs, is maneuvering as well, at least a dozen boats in all. The first collision of the afternoon occurs in the exit to the yacht club basin as one boat tries to tack away from the eastern seawall while another boat rounds up early, trying to take advantage of the lull in the basin to get all sails up. “Starboard!” I hear the skipper call out fruitlessly just seconds before his boat is smacked on the port quarter. The glancing blow causes no damage but forces the second boat to make a complete circle in place, cutting off the exit route and narrowly missing a third boat.

We are already making almost seven knots as we reach the corner of the seawall. I crack off to a broad reach, aiming at the leeward mark, a mere stone’s throw from the rocks on the seawall. I feel the boat surge as we head further downwind.  We’re one of the first boats at the start line, and I begin tacking the little boat through figure eights in the stiff breeze, feeling out the best reach angles and trying to determine the best place to be at the gun. White caps lick the deck edge, sending spray into our eyes. James calls out time from the bow pulpit, one hand signaling me the number of boat lengths he estimates that we are from the start line. With about three minutes to go, the whole fleet is assembled, jockeying for position in a chaotic jumble. My heart quickens as I tack the boat through another figure eight, narrowly missing another J-24 making its own maneuver. We angle for the far-left end of the line, and I pick a line-up that will put me “on top” of the fleet, with a clear line in the wind.

I’m a little late. The gun sounds while we are still a boat length from the line, and we are going to be the fourth boat to cross. The first boat over the line was early, though, and the penalty gun sounds, causing that poor boat to circle back around. I focus ahead, concentrating on minimal rudder motion, maximizing our speed into the line. James crouches under the boom as Hannah and Ben haul in the sheets. I’m aiming for the windward corner of the start line, which will hopefully allow us to only have to make one more tack in the upwind leg. As the windward starting buoy passes along the port bow, I smoothly and swiftly rotate the tiller, watching the red ball as it passes just inches from our hull. As I round up, Hannah gives a mighty yank on the jib sheet, and Ben hauls in on the main, shifting the traveler up above center as I locate a close-hauled course. James hikes out hard on the windward rail.

Another boat rounds the mark behind us, and up ahead I see a J-24 tacking. The boat ahead settles into a course well below the mark. They are significantly off from my perpendicular, leaving me puzzled, though not for long. James calls out a puff ahead, and we are nearly knocked on our side as I round up into the wind to spill some of the air. The strong gust marks a significant wind shift, and I find myself settling almost thirty degrees higher than before. Excited, I call to James on the bow to be ready for a quick set, as we’ll be on a super short leg into the mark from here. The already short racecourse just got significantly smaller due to the wind shift.

I watch as the windward mark buoy slides abaft my beam, about fifteen boat lengths off in the direction of the basin. I wait an extra beat or two, then call to my crew to prepare to tack. My voice is nearly drowned in the heavy winds, and I wonder just how much breeze we’re facing today. I roll the tiller over, and we smoothly rotate through the wind, losing almost no momentum in the turn. Hannah cracks just a touch off the sheet, and Ben adjusts the main as we make for the mark. Our boat handling has moved us up to second place! James is frantically working the halyard off the bow pulpit onto the waiting spinnaker, giving the sheet and guy a last-second review, and setting the spinnaker pole on the mast in prep for launch. Another puff catches us all a little off guard, and James loses his footing. Cursing loudly, he snags the foredeck hatch cover, narrowly avoiding a slide under the lifelines, but not before plunging both legs into the chop on the port side. With supreme effort, he yanks himself to his feet to take station at the mast for the final few seconds.

“Stand by!” I call. With two lengths to go, I shift my body lower to peek under the boom at the buoy. My weight adds additional heel, and I fight to maintain my own balance as I nudge the tiller over slightly, aiming to miss the buoy by scant inches before falling off. “Launch!” I call next. Easing the tiller, we come smoothly down to run with the wind, and Ben drops the mainsail out to the beam. Hannah is fighting the spinnaker sheet with one hand and the guy with the other, while James hauls away on the halyard for all he’s worth. In seconds, the spinnaker is aloft, and James is moving to the jib to drop it to the deck.

This wind shift leads us on a dangerous course, and I suddenly realize that we’re headed straight for the seawall. I need to gibe, and quick. James is still up forward fighting the jib when I call out to prepare to gibe, and he grunts angrily as he makes ready to trip the spinnaker pole. Two feet in front of me, Hannah is fighting to control the raging spinnaker in her grip, and realization dawns that we are in a real jam. “Gibe ho!” I shout, trying to ease through the wind. As my tiller moves, however, the wind briefly clocks back eastward, and before Ben has hauled the main sheet in, the boom careens across the cockpit, the autogibe throwing the boat over on the opposite side and sending James tumbling toward the now-leeward rail. In the stumble, he’s unable to trip the spinnaker pole, so the guy wire is pinned to the wrong side of the boat. As the wind shifts back out to the northeast, I struggle to keep the tiller under control, the gusts continuing to force us down towards the rocks.

As James regains his feet, he tries to reach the spinnaker pole, but he’s completely soaked, and the damn thing is jammed aft, the full spinnaker acting like an enormous jib. Another gust knocks us hard over, and I realize we are near broaching. If not for the seawall, we could simply fall off to fix our sails, but I’m way too close to the rocks to risk that. Thinking as quickly as I can, I call out to Ben and James to dump the halyards, hoping to recover by spilling all the sails at once. Ben immediately pops the mainsail halyard, and James is reaching for the mast when another gust knocks Hannah off her feet, her right hand losing its grip on the sheet, which has still been pinned in place by the pole. Returning to her feet, she loses her hold of the guy as well.

Seemingly in slow motion, I watch in horror as the spinnaker rises like a massive pennant to a near-horizontal in the stiff wind. Finally free of unnatural tension, the spinnaker pole is flapping wildly to starboard, clanging against the rigging as the knotted end of the sheet slams into its jaw. To port, the guy is now an angry snake coiling into and out of the water, whipping at Hannah’s outstretched hand as she scrambles forward to try and recover it. The boat is no longer under control. I let the tiller go as we continue to drift towards the rocks off the starboard bow. Pulling James aside, I grasp the knife from my pocket, hoping to attack the spinnaker sheet near the clew knot so that we can drop the halyard and take the way off the boat, but I can’t reach it. The blade already open, I turn instead to the mast, where I saw through the spinnaker halyard. Hannah has returned to the cockpit by the time I hear the loud snap of the line, and the spinnaker falls away from the boat swiftly, still anchored by the sheet, but free at the other two corners. The heel on our boat immediately eases, and we begin to bob like a cork under no sails.

James and I begin the process of hauling in the spinnaker, both of us drenched in sweat and brackish water as Hannah begins pumping the tiller to try and round us into the wind. Ben tentatively hauls up the jib, working his way to the cockpit to wrap the sheet a couple of turns around the winch. Finally making a little headway, James and I get the spinnaker inside the lifelines just as Coach arrives alongside in her little power boat, a clearly visible trail of her wake testifying to the high speed required for her attempt to render assistance.

“Everyone okay?” she calls, her voice shaking with the same electricity I feel surging through my veins.

I look around, stumbling my way back across the debris towards the cockpit. “I think so.” Hannah and I trade places at the tiller, and she gives me a quick squeeze on the shoulder. Is that her shaking, or is it me?

“Scared the hell out of me.” The coach replies. “Can you make it back to the basin okay? I’m checking in with the race committee. No way we’re gonna finish racing in this weather.” I nod my understanding. “Okay, then.” She eyes me a few seconds before continuing. “You had to cut the halyard, didn’t you?” I nod again, and she shakes her head sadly. “Damn shame.” I drop my eyes. “But you’d have been on the rocks otherwise. That last puff must have been at least fifty knots.”

For the first time, I expand my gaze, and I notice that the entire fleet is in disarray. Several other spinnakers are either in the water or a sopping jumble on foredecks, and most of the other boats are making their way under reduced sail for the relative safety of the docks. We may have lost the race today, but there will clearly be no winners, and at least nobody got hurt. Thanking God for our near miss, I chalk it up as a vivid reminder of the dangers of this sport, and just how close we can be to disaster.