By Karen Sullivan
Published in 48 North, March 2008
I’ve always been a cruiser and haven’t gone in much for racing because it always seems so intense and competitive, sort of antithetical to cruising under sail. Besides, Minstrel is a Dana 24, not a J-24. So, when three boatless sailing friends inveigled me, on a freezing day in late January, to come out and race in the Port Townsend Shipwright’s Regatta on February 2, my first reaction was “Are you crazy?” But I agreed tentatively, with the caveat that should it snow we would not be emulating Shackleton’s Endurance.
The Shipwright’s Regatta is the kickoff to the racing season. Every grizzled sailor I met at the evening pre-race skipper’s meeting, which was held outside on the Wooden Boat Foundation’s freezing cold porch, looked like they’d just rounded Cape Horn. Holy cow. What was I getting myself into? I may have been one of only two female skippers, but I was certainly not the only one with an earring. Someone tapped a nearly frozen keg and handed me a beer, and the meeting came to order. We talked a little about the race but a lot about the party that would be held afterward. For this clueless race newbie, it was a darned good beginning.
On race morning the forecast was good. I was unable to resist scrubbing the boat’s bottom and digging my spinnaker out of its locker. A friend who owns a Flicka (and who’d sailed it to Tahiti and back) walked past and said, “Looks like you’re getting ready to go out.” When I told him what I was going to do, he looked incredulous. This confirmed the answer to my question in paragraph one.
It was the best race I ever sailed. Of course, it’s also the only race I ever sailed, but future ones have a high bar to beat. 16 boats started and 18 finished, a first in 17 years of the Shipwright’s Regatta. We all sailed in light winds and jilled around waiting for the start, but then the wind died and the committee boat put up the ‘postpone’ flag. It was warm and sunny for a short while, which elicited comments around the fleet about Baja-on-the-Puget. There was also one incident in which the evidently bored crew of a large schooner, whose name will not be named to protect the guilty, surreptitiously mooned another boat whose name will also not be disclosed in order to protect the shocked. So, since everyone was having a big floating party and had no intention of not racing AND having the party, we all continued our gam in defiance of the weird February calm and the postpone flag.
The oldest boat in the fleet sailed plaintively around crying, “Does anyone have any matches?” I yelled “YES!” before remembering that I had taken all the ship’s matches home to keep them dry over the winter. But the 1903-built Dorjun was approaching, with their crew yelling thanks and rejoicing that their Captain, a desperate-looking bewhiskered chain smoker who’d forgotten his matches, would not have to sacrifice his crew one by one after all – so I dashed below and got my little Ronson torch out of my bosun’s kit, dashed topsides again, and realized that it was probably out of butane. Too late, Dorjun sailed close by and I hung off the shrouds to hand it to them with the caveat, “I THINK it works…” which was met by howls of dismay.
But it worked, and all were happy. The race finally got underway an hour or so later, and Minstrel was in a very good position, crossing the starting line simultaneously with all the lead boats. We sailed well, keeping in close formation with the big schooner Alcyone (not the mooners) and a 32 foot fiberglass boat with a large drifter. Considering that I was using just plain sail, albeit my lovely new tanbark sails made by the talented Carol Hasse in PT, we did well all the way down to the leeward mark, the Point Hudson buoy, which is a fearsome tide hole – and the tide was honking at maximum ebb.
Minstrel was poised to round that buoy closely and ricochet back out until a big beautiful wooden cutter, whose name will not be named to protect the egos, yelled at us to keep clear so she could do exactly that. Since it was my first race and I was after a good time and not blood or splinters, I replied that I would keep clear – even though it was a bit iffy whether they had right of way or not, unless you subscribe to the “Might Makes Right” theory, which I did. Since I was new at racing, this was all about having a good time, and no protests are allowed anyway, in the very jolly Shipwright’s Regatta.
So the cutter cut me off, and I had to sail well past the buoy, finally tacking instead of gybing to try and make up the couple hundred feet lost. But by then the current had hold of us and pulled us backwards, and there we stayed with Dorjun, as good as anchored while the rest of the fleet pulled away. Grrrrr! No more Mister Nice Guy, I growled, competitive bloodlust rising. We set my asymmetrical spinnaker and it began drawing in the tiny zephyrs, but it was doubtful if we could break free of the current. Finally a bit of wind came up and we did, closing the distance nicely with the rest of the fleet by sneaking along the shoreline. We sailed that spinnaker downwind, wing and wing, on broad and beam reaches, and even a slight upwind reach – everything but upside down! Having rarely ever set it due to sailing in windy Alaska for 5 years, I was amazed and pleased. Finally the wind came back and we doused the spinnaker, went back to all plain sail, and managed to finish with a rousing cheer. My crew really knew what they were doing, and this made my first race a real pleasure. With two of them graciously acting as movable frozen ballast, we made up the lost time nicely.
At the party, where Sirens pub bought a round of pints and pizza for all the crews, the awards were given out. These were seriously creative. For example, one award was a green motorcycle helmet with a windex glued to the top of it. I don’t remember what that was for. There was the “Bent Belaying Pin” award, and the “You’re Screwed” award, which was a battered box of dull drill bits for the boat that crossed the starting line too early. But there were some real prizes, too – tickets to the Wooden Boat Festival, and a free haulout from Sea Marine.
Dorjun received the “WhackOMatic” prize, which is an old, framed, electrified (!!??) caulking mallet that had once been accidentally split in half and repaired with the prettiest dovetail spline you ever saw, obviously made by a shipwright with time on his hands… a LOT of time. Dorjun shared it with Minstrel because they said we’d saved the crews’ lives with our Ronson torch. All of us were warned to never try plugging in the WhackOMatic. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember why we got this award except that we both spent the most time way back in the fleet getting nowhere, but arguably having the best time doing so.
The reason I raced for the first time in my life, in February no less, was because my boatless sailing friends begged me to do it. The reason I’ll race again is because I am hooked now, as surely as a prize trout on a well-cast woolly bugger.