Apr 18 2009
Red Striped and Bruised
I have always bruised easily. When I played football in school I took a certain pride in the monstrous blooms of crimson and purple which would spread across my body like so many bubonic jellyfish pulsing just below the surface of my skin. It didn’t take long to realize that the body will always heal itself… the bruises people can’t see are much, much harder to handle. In my first race of 2009 I managed to give myself a few of each.
It was a beautiful Spring day, with temps in the 70s and wind 5-15 from the North-Northwest. I got an invite to ride with Chris Popich on Wooglin and jumped at the opportunity to get out after missing the first 4 events of the year. I must say it was amazing to see the guys, and be greeted by all the warm smiles and greetings of “Where have you been?” The community of fleet #1 is a rare treasure, and I have missed it.
Chris got a great start in our first race, and chose an outside line into the bay where the wind looked better. Charmed Juan took a line inside of us and found more speed, quickly overtaking us. Jim Miller on Jesse started middle of the pack but flew by everyone on the way to the windward mark. I think Chris and Stephen will have some serious competition on their hands when he starts flying a spinnaker. We rounded the Mark 3rd or 4th but quickly threw up the chute and passed the working sails boats and Stephen who was single handing. We held on to cross the line first, and repeated our performance for the next 2 races.
I noticed how Chris kept an eye on all the sailboats on the course and made decisions based on how they were doing. The afternoon was full of comments like “I like how Scout and Jesse are looking on the outside, lets tack.” Or “ Gene & Fausto are getting a nice line inside lets jibe to shore.” I couldn’t always see what he saw, but when the boats were on the same tack as us they were generally making trees on us.
Needless to say we were feeling pretty good with our performance. During the third race the wind really picked up and we were able to put together a pretty good lead on the downwind leg. We even played around with heating up the spinnaker to see how fast we could get Wooglin going on the new GPS (we hit 6.8 knots with a 15 knot breeze and flat water). Then we made our major mistake of the day… we cracked open the Red Stripe Beer.
Now, I am no light weight and Chris has likely drank a beer or two in his day, so one Jamacian Lager would not immediately seem a likely cause of our downfall. But what you must realize is that we had been out on the water racing in the bright sun with nothing to eat or drink for 3+ hours at this point. We were thirsty, and starving, and giddy on endorphins from winning the last three races. Add to this picture the fact that we started and sailed the first leg of the race while still holding a beer in one hand and it was a disastrous combination. Of course we were having a great time, and didn’t truly realize how bad a combination it was until we ran aground off Duamish Head.
We were following Stephen who had rolled us on the inside towards the pier off Duamish head. Stephen tacked and headed to the mark, and Chris wanted to get a little to weather of him to ensure we didn’t get gassed as we headed for the mark. Chris said to me “this is making me nervous… do you see any crabs yet.” Supremely confident that nothing so trivial as shallow water would dare obstruct our complete domination of the racecourse I replied “Keep going… we have plenty of depth!” Two seconds later we jerked to a halt as we ran aground, and the wind & ferry wakes began pushing us further onto the shore.
It was like the universe reached out and smacked me across the face. I now know how it feels to be a Tobacco executive testifying before congress, or a Televangelist, or George W. Bush. It left a mark I will not soon forget. It was the Instant Karma which John told us about.
Luckily, the adrenalin snapped me out of my fog and I quickly jumped down and cranked up the keel. We sailed off and collected ourselves for the rest of the race. We were now solidly in the middle of the pack, and though we had regained our focus we were unable to claw our way back into contention and finished 3rd or 4th across the line.
After the final race Chris and I finally got our lunch out, and enjoyed good conversation and good company as we sailed around a beautiful Elliot bay.
There is an old proverb that says there are two kinds of sailors–those who have run aground and those who are going to run aground. Congratulations on having just moved from one category to the other without having wounded anything more than your pride.