One of the first things I learned from Luigi about sailing is that if there are two sailboats in the water, it's always a race. Not really an official race, just two skippers flexing their sails so to speak. I wanted the real thing. A real sailing race, with a real starting point and real finish line. We found the perfect one. A race to a pub! It "whet" my appetite for more and I can't wait until the next race season starts.
Here is a little taste of the Race to the Pub.
MY FIRST RACE!!
I did it…finally! After months of trepidation about taking part in my first sailboat race with my husband, I could not say no to the “Race to Thetis Pub” put on annually by our local sailing club (I find it hard to call it a yacht club – it sounds too pretentious and, besides, as far as I have seen none of us fellow “yacht” members have a yacht!). The Ladysmith Yacht Club consists of about 150 sailboat and motorboat enthusiasts and is located at Ladysmith Marina on Vancouver Island, BC. The race would cover roughly 5½ nautical miles.
Why the trepidation? I am a fifty-something year old grandmother AND a sailing newbie. I have barely passed the lessons “this is the head NOT the toilet” and “there are NO ropes on a sailboat – they are LINES”. I am still in the “kindergarten” of the sailing school of hard knocks. Oh yeah…not to mention that I would be sailing with my private sailing instructor, the man I said “I do” to a mere 18 months ago and who also happens to be an intensely passionate (especially about sailing) Italian. Trepidation aside, I was going to give it a go. Just to add to the excitement, we asked good friends (and racing newbies also) Robin and Gerda to join us on our Canadian built1981 Mirage 27 “Nauja”.
Race morning, to my relief, dawned sunny with just a slight breeze. I was ready. Skipper Luigi had gone ahead to attend the skipper’s meeting and prepare our boat, “Nauja”, a 27 foot Mirage sailboat. My pre-race instructions were to show up at the dock with a triple espresso in hand. Fuel for the boat’s captain.
The marina was abuzz with pre-race excitement…well, maybe not quite that “abuzz”…after all this was just a little pub race with a mere 14 sailboats vying for the first glass of Thetis Island beer.
We donned our life-vests, boarded the boat to begin our maiden race and laid out our strategy, ah…strategy? C’mon, what strategy?
Once out of the docks and into the “jockeying” area, I no longer felt like a kid in sailing kindergarten. Adrenaline was flowing; boats were circling, vying for the best starting position. The countdown began…5 seconds…4,3,2,1…sail!
We were off to a great start…even crossed the starting line at the sound of the horn. I loved the sight of the colourful spinnakers on the competitors boats filled with wind resembling enormous kites. Our spinnaker-less boat was struggling to keep up with the boats that were capturing the light breeze with their “kites”. My competitive nature kicked in and I whined to the skipper about our lack of a spinnaker. I took my mind off of our lagging position by enjoying the view through the camera lens and capturing a few memories while I was waiting for some “wind in my sails”.
HOOOOT, HOOOOT, HOOOOT and 2 seconds later another HOOOOT, HOOOOT, HOOOOT…”What the…” Who is that big tug telling to get out of the way?” Ooops…it’s us! How embarrassing…here we are in our first race, sailing in the middle of the passage just as the 149-ton tug decides to pull its several thousand-ton barge through the channel! “Okay, we have to tack to get out of its way,” yelled our skipper. “uh uh…we’re not tacking!” Crew against skipper, crew won but the tug skipper was NOT impressed. Another HOOOOT, HOOOOT, HOOOOT from the tanker (and I am sure #$#@ from its skipper). Consensus was that we would start the engine if we were too close for comfort but we managed to sail to safety and stay in the race, even if it was with our tail “between” our keel.
Whoooooosh, suddenly “kites” were flying away literally. The gentle breeze became a howling 20 knots wind proving too much for the spinnakers to handle and crews were scrambling to rescue them before they were ripped or worse, lost at sea. Whoa…like a racehorse out of the starting gate, “Nauja” took off, adrenalin flowed like the Thames. Finally the sails were happy and we were back in the race! We were heeling at 25 degrees and my crewmate at the wheel was showing the “Oh my god, what have I gotten myself in for” look.
“Don’t overcompensate! Get closer to the wind!” “Don’t worry, I am spilling some wind” our skipper was yelling.
“You’re what?? Why are we SPILLING wind?” I yelled back. “We are in a RACE!” (Did I say that my competitive nature kicked in?)
With Robin at the wheel and Luigi adjusting the sails, I was delegated to stay perched on the “port” (for those readers not yet in sailing school – that’s sailor-ese for “left”) side of the boat to prevent drift. I needed a more important role, so I delegated myself to “tell-tail reporter”, making sure the skipper kept them “happy” and flying straight by “tweaking” the sails. It went something like this “green tell-tail is not happy…oh…now it is…but now the red tell-ail isn’t happy” sailor’s jargon it’s not.
Time passed quickly as did the miles and we were happily in the middle of the pack when our racehorse turned into a nag. The sails started “luffing” at us…”ha-ha-ha-ha…I’ve had enough” they seemed to say. We tacked and we tacked again, with not much luck in becoming reacquainted with the precious wind. Fellow competitors were catching up, I was whining, neither the green nor the red tell-tails were happy but we somehow limped across the finish line in a respectable time for a bunch of newbie racers and motored to the pub for a celebratory lunch with our fellow competitors.
How do I feel about sailboat racing now? I love it! Yes, I realize that this was just a small, informal race but it was enough to ignite my competitive nature and “learn the ropes”…err should that be lines?
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