2007 SEASON SUMMARY HOME SHOW US YOUR GLASS

Show Us Your Glass

Thanks to this years Broken Rudder winner, Suzanne Moore, who did so in convincing fashion very early of the season, a couple of otherwise worthy candidates flew under the radar and their dubious actions went unnoticed by many racers. That is until now, where there harrowing stories of shame will be exposed to all. (Note: Sail numbers will be used to minimize the humiliation of their actions).

Our first tale involves a sailor who for years has passionately lobbied Race Committee members to retire the annual award because it “rewards mediocrity and only embarrasses the person chosen”. So vocal was this person in 2005 that he was able to convince the committee to pass on presenting the award that season. Luckily he was never under consideration this season or we might truly have seen some real fireworks after his follies on the race course.

So what happened that merits his story in writing? It’s was a Thursday night in June and the wind was blowing out of the North at 10-15 (pretty good for an evening). On the first leg of the course, the skipper of #1318 was on starboard tack when he quickly shifted to port. Unfortunately for him and his crew they didn’t account for #1278 Steve Wiseman coming on starboard. In a quick moment of reaction #1318 was able to avoid putting a king-sized hole in #1278 by thrusting the tiller away from his on-coming opponent but wasn’t able to avoid hitting #1278’s outhaul. The net effect was that #1278 was unable to continue racing since his boat was disabled.

Being the sportsman that he is, the skipper of #1318 retired from the race but he actually didn’t exactly finish racing. He mentioned to his trusty crew that they would continue racing for the practice since it was such a nice evening. It was right after this decision was made that the skipper ordered his crew to take the bow to fix a problem related to the dislodging of #1278’s outhaul. While cruising off on port tack, it was at this very moment that our skipper went for the “daily double” as unbeknownst to him coming fast on starboard tack was #867 who of course was still racing. Before they knew what happened, #867 was also retiring with more than a broken outhaul. Once again #1318 proved the old adage “if you don’t first succeed try, try again”.

The other sailor who found himself on the wrong end of things was #4336. His brush with humiliation occurred in the Red Series about two weeks after the year’s first big incident. In this case #4336 and its skipper (coming off shoulder surgery) along with his crew were out testing the course prior to the start of the first race by sailing up-wind. While about 75 yards to windward of the starting line and sailing on port, with the skipper trying to gauge the shifts and the crew also looking off the same direction talking about non-related sailing things, a shrilling scream came from starboard yonder. With his eye brows lifted high, the skipper only remembers seeing a flash of blue and a female voice say “we are going to hit” and then two seconds later hearing a loud thud followed by a sound similar to someone munching on corn flakes. It was with a certain amount of disbelief (and a touch of embarrassment), the skipper (and crew) of 4336 found the starboard bow slightly reconfigured. Maybe next time he will just stick around the starting line where there seems to be less congestion.

After recounting each of these stories it might be reasonable to conclude any one of the following: