Starboard!!!

Aren't they lovely? Now how hard could that be?

Deb and I were at a fundraiser for a New York judicial candidate, a very good friend of ours for whom Deb is campaign treasurer. Please vote for her. Her name is Leticia. Always vote for anyone named Leticia.

There were a lot of legal types in attendance, most of whom I did not know. At some point someone I did know, perhaps sensing I was something of an outcast, pointed out to me that yet another lawyer-attendee also happened to be a sailor. The two of us were introduced, and naturally from then on all moot points of jurisprudence were off the table.

The young man was engaging, obviously had a good head on his shoulders, and somehow along his tortuous path to the New York Bar he’d gotten the itch to learn to sail as well.

I know. Boy has he got a lot to learn now.

A self-starter with little waterborne experience, he’d read whatever he could get his hands on and consulted anyone who’d lend a salted ear. He was told that a wise choice in a boat would be a model that would have reliable resale value, for the day he would inevitably conclude that sailing was for the birds.

The J-24 was mentioned as a suitable consideration. Grabbing the bull by the horns, he searched and found one for sale. He bought it. He then found a yacht club he liked, and joined it. He took his boat there and put it on a mooring. Next, he took his book learning aboard, along with his lovely, somewhat reticent fiancé. And then, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, on a day with a good breeze up, he allegedly conspired with the prevailing winds to kill the woman. I said allegedly. Anyway, she's fine now.

I really admired Nico’s spunk. He reminded me of Deb, whose lack of experience on any given subject will not dissuade her from jumping into the fray anytime, full throttle. Thus her present status shift from clothing sales executive to political treasurer.

His one strategic mistake was simple and direct. He asked me if I’d like to go racing with him. Mine was to say, “Hey, why not?”

In my defense, I was completely forthcoming as to my racing pedigree, which is virtually non-existent. I prefer the occasional, casual, come as you are, protests strongly discouraged, main and jib affair. Testosterone-laced competition rattles me, as it tends to make men who haven’t been given the chance to honorably acquire PTSD very, very, disagreeable.

I like life in the slow lane, but a promise is a promise. I know how hard it is for a new captain to acquire a reliable crew, though Nico did say there would be other friends along to help. Then there was his sincere insistence that he didn’t care where he finished as long as everyone came home in one piece after having had a good time on the water. Ditto and sold.

Still, I believe in trying, and that ebullient effort need not intrude upon the pursuit of good fun. So I prepped for the event. I read over “The Rules”. I watched YouTube videos on spinnaker sets and douses. Oh, have I not yet mentioned that spinnakers would be involved? I really ought to have mentioned that. Spinnakers are those lovely, colorful, balloon-shaped affairs that are an absolute joy to witness from shore. My brother, who is a for real racer, will tell you: the difference between jib & main versus spinnaker racing? Apples and hand grenades.

So I’m sitting there pretending that watching YouTube will prepare me for a J-24 race, and I wasn’t the only one watching the videos. I packed sunscreen, sailing gloves, kneepads and aspirin. I should’ve added a tourniquet and some finger splints.

It was never quite clear to me who among our crew had what kind of sailing experience. There were five of us, and I gathered that four of us had virtually no serious racing time. The fifth was maybe going to make it to the boat from a Paris flight after three sleepless nights of European partying. As I interpreted the information, he was to be our ringer.

We got out on the water with just enough time to try out the borrowed spinnaker a couple of times under light winds (thank you, weather gods) and a 4hp Yamaha substituting for jib and main. You know, I can hear somebody who doesn’t even know what a spinnaker is laughing at me right now. Blow it out your poop chute, Sophocles.

But in terms of the Fear Factor, the thing that really had me spooked, my personal albatross, was Niko’s proud display of his damn winch handle, a precious artifact forged in the fires of Arian conflict, its proclamation “Made in West Germany” fused forever onto its righteous forearm. I don’t have to explain it to you, do I? I mean I have a piece of the fallen Berlin Wall. I am an authentic Kraut.

Already knowing the answer to my next question, I asked if his Teutonic jewel might happen to float. I then asked if he had another less historic lever onboard. Weighing my estimable skill sets against the diverse and challenging responsibilities involved on the J-24, I found myself the de facto trimmer. A little voice inside my head went, "uh oh."

Cut to the chase. The winds were blessedly light, or we would have been in some real shit. No boats were fouled, and the only damage to flesh, mine anyways, was the result of my cut-off gloves, which could not prevent layers of epidermis from being stripped from my fingers within the first three tacks, making it a bitch from then on in to trim. Nico, bless the guy, flew the spinnaker on every downwind leg, assuring us that on principle we would twice finish DFL. Had we forgone the monstrosity, we probably would’ve overtaken a straggler or two each race.

The real disaster, though, came early in race two on an upwind leg. Despite my intense procedural study on YouTube and my acute awareness of my less than stellar performance during earlier tacks, I continued to foul the just released lazy sheet, sometimes with a shoe, sometimes with my ass, as I concentrated on setting the new working sheet. So our tactition/pit man started to lend a helping hand with the cockpit chores.

It would be a cowardly, not to mention physically painful gesture, to point fingers at this juncture. Let us just say that somewhere along the first upwind leg of Race 2, around mid-tack and with all the frantic, congested activity that occurs in the cockpit of a small racing sailboat, something happened to the winch handle. I heard it, and then I saw it, sliding down the deck toward eternal rest.

The rest, as you know, is predictable; a redundant reminder of the destiny of all things natural. Time morphed into slow motion as I went lunging like a table hockey fanatic for a hunk of poured metal. Had I composed myself, charted its likely course, and made one strategic attempt… maybe, just maybe. Instead, I made a series of vain, sweeping motions, like an off-meds epileptic attempting the breaststroke on dry land.

I half considered jumping in the water for a last attempt. Had it been my boat, and we not racing, and me not wearing a pair of six hundred dollar prescription glasses, my having ascertained with lightning reflexes that my iPhone wasn’t in my pocket, and finally noting that a responsible person was at the helm, I would’ve totally gone for it. I’m a pretty good swimmer, and I had a good bead on the SOB when it hit the water.

If.

Now how do we get it down???