Details on the Big Race

First off, I didn't even want to race. Joyce had to talk me into it. Just wasn't comfortable racing our ‘home' especially against all those big heavy cruising boats. But we looked at the races rules and saw that the race committee had planned a downwind start and felt a little bit better about the safety of our boat. On race day, I took down the dodger and stowed the barbeque grill and that was the sum of our preparation. Couldn't see dumping our precious water as it would be 50 cents a gallon to refill. As we didn't want to tow the dinghy or have to re-anchor, we left our dinghy tied to our anchor rode and dumped the rest of the anchor rode in the dinghy, hoping that they would both be there upon our return.

In typical Bahamian fashion, everyone was out on the race course milling around for a 10:00 a.m. start. But the committee boat was nowhere to be seen. A few calls on the VHF radio confirmed that in fact the race would not start on time. We didn't actually start until 11:45 a.m. So in the meantime, we sailed idly around under mainsail alone for almost two hours.

The weather could not have been better for the race; 15 knots out of the east and the seas relatively flat, us in the lee of Staniel Cay. One of the rules for the race is that no boats should hit he committee boat; however this rule was amended by the captain of the committee boat, a rusty 120 foot steel mail boat. He said that it would be quite okay to hit his boat!

There were boats of every type in the race including 5 catamarans, a steel schooner, several big heavy displacement cruising boats, a few sport boats such as a 46 foot Beneteau and the local favorite, The Lady Muriel. At only 28 feet in length, you would think that the Lady M stood little chance against a modern fin keel. But the Lady M was essentially an oversized dinghy liked the ones I raced the day before. They carry a lot of sail area and like the dinghys are balanced by crew hiking out on wooden planks. She was fast, but not the fastest. The catamarans were in their own class and interestingly enough, a catamaran was both the first and last to finish. One of the catamarans racing were our friends on Feng Shui, a 6 month old Manta 40. More on them later.

Even coming up to the start, we hadn't pulled out our jib yet. Another boat passed close by and asked us if we were racing. Why we would be milling around the starting line with 26 other boats unless we were racing, I do not know. But with 30 seconds to go and we just above the starting line, we pulled out the jib and crossing the line in good shape. We crossed the first mark in fourth place overall and that was when the competitive streak in Joyce came out.

We rounded the mark and got away clear before the rest of the pack approached. This is when Feng Shui got into trouble. A pack of boats approached the mark, Feng Shui being near the outside. However, one of the boats even further outside jibed too early, right into Feng Shui. The other boat's anchor punched two holes into the deck of the Manta 40 and bent some of their stanchions. When we heard that we felt absolutely terrible. To their credit, they finished the race but to the other boats discredit, they did the same.

As we rounded the upwind mark for the first time, we had been overtaken by two boats, one the Lady M. The evening before, we had met the skipper of the Lady M, a colorful character in his own right. Brookes told us the secret for the race; he said to follow Lady M and we would come in second! She was fast, I can vouch for that but she still trailed a large catamaran and the Beneteau 46. Thus on the second and final lap, we found ourselves in fact, following the Lady M. We were still near the leaders as we rounded the first down wind mark and headed for the second downwind mark. But where was it? It seemed to have disappeared, along with the committee boat who was stationed nearby. So we followed the Lady M and the boat behind on a course that seemed too high of the mark. Thus we found ourselves about a quarter mile upwind of the mark when we finally saw it; not the large orange ball that had been there on our first rounding but a small white ball, almost impossible to see against the sun and rocks nearby. We went back to round to properly round it but neither the Lady M nor the boat behind did so, therefore both becoming disqualified in the process. We rounded, having now lost two places to boats that found the mark but gaining two on the boats in front who were disqualified. On this upwind leg, we eventually caught both of the boats and ended up finishing the race in third place.

Later at the awards ceremony we found the skipper of the Lady M who was acting rather humbly at the time. So we didn't rub it in too hard that we almost followed him and got disqualified ourselves.