Another weekend, another regatta.  This time, the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club’s Fall Regatta (the STYC has the distinction of being the only land-locked yacht club I know of).

For a change the wind was strong and only got stronger as the day went on.

Some of our competition.

Some of our competition. From left to right: Kiwi Express, Dacha, and Magic Button.

Our second race was most notable to me.  By now the wind was very strong (at least 20 knots) and out by the West Point marker the swells were at least six feet.  Most of the crew was spending most of their time on the windward rail trying to keep Slingshot’s heel at a manageable angle.

There are three main rules that govern right-of-way when racing sailboats:

  1. A boat on a port tack, must stay clear of a boat on a starboard tack.
  2. If both boats are on the same tack and they overlap, the boat to windward must stay clear of the boat to leeward.
  3. If both boats are on the same tack and don’t overlap, the boat that is overtaking must stay clear of the boat clear ahead.

Since you can’t sail directly upwind, sailboats have to tack from one side to the other in order to zig zag their way up to the windward mark.  The normal order of operation goes something like this:

  1. Helmsman says “Ready to tack.”
  2. The crew responsible for wrangling the jib get ready to tack.  The bowman gets ready to help the jib cross to the other side of the boat.  The cockpit man, mastman, and anyone else that isn’t involved in the tack get ready to move to the other side of the boat.  Typically this step lasts 3-10 seconds.
  3. The helmsman says “Helm’s over,” and begins to steer the boat through the tack.
  4. As the boat turns, it levels out.  The ballast (cockpit man, mastman, etc.) cross to the center of the boat.
  5. As the boat begins to heel over on the opposite side, the ballast hikes up to the new windward rail to sit down and be heavy.

When done correctly, this process takes about 10 seconds to complete.

Although it was sunny, the decks were wet from the spray.  I remember at one point looking at our bowman and mastman (Martin, and Juan) and noticing that they were drenched (the saps at the front of the boat get splashed a lot).

Magic button directly behind us, Sea Tiger to the left.

Magic button directly behind us, Sea Tiger to the left.

I remarked to one of my crewmates how happy I was that I wasn’t working on the bow (I was manning the cockpit).  About 30 seconds later fate intervened.

We were on a port tack and cruising along at some quick-for-a-sailboat speed (maybe 7 knots or so). Unnoticed by the helmsman (until the last second), a boat on a starboard tack (Kiwi Express) suddenly emerged in front of Slingshot (the sails can often obscure the helmsman’s view ahead of the boat).

Emergency tack!

The normal tacking procedure was modified slightly:

  1. Helmsman yelled “Tacking!” while simultaneously turning the boat hard to port.
  2. The crew on the rail went from being eight feet in the air to three feet underwater in about three seconds.

As water rushed over the deck I looked to the other rail where I was supposed to be.  Instead of being a 30 degree uphill hike the deck was now a near-vertical wall.  Judging by the angles involved, I estimate the tip of the mast was about five feet from the water.

Hiking was out of the question.  I was holding onto the lifelines so I wouldn’t be swept overboard.  Unfortunately, the weight of the ballast (i.e. me) was now on the wrong side of the boat and only making things worse.

Eventually Slingshot righted –it’s extremely hard to capsize a keelboat because the weight of the keel tends to make the ship self-righting.

I was completely soaked and we still had half of the second race and a two-hour third race left to go.

Other than being very cold, the rest of the day went quite well for us.  Due to some confusion over the third race’s instructions, it appeared that we were disqualified for missing a mark.  This put our day’s standings at first place, third place, and eighth place (fifth overall in our class).  It appeared I had gotten soaked and frozen for nothing.

Since we weren’t the only ones confused by the course of the third race, the race committee relented and counted our run which put us in first place.  Our final standings were now first, third, first.  This meant that we were now first place overall, and the boat that was previously in first place, Dacha, got bumped to second place (in the event of a tie, the last race is used as the tie breaker).