There’s always next year

This past Saturday in sunny, windy, not so windy and cold conditions, the Peconic Bay Sailing Association held its 26th annual Whitebread “round the whirl” Regatta. This is the last large regatta of the season held in the waters of eastern Long Island. The Whitebread is a spoof on the original Whitebread “round the world race,” but ours only circumnavigates Shelter Island.

The race committee used to start the race in Cutchogue Harbor, but for the past couple of years the start line has been moved closer to Shelter Island to R18 in the middle of Little Peconic Bay. For those of us sailing from Shelter Island it meant an extra hour of sleep. The 78 boats that registered this year were split into six divisions with two classes per division along with a multi-hull division.

Since there are many types and sizes of boats, unlike a one-class regatta, a PHRF rating, similar to a handicap in golf, is used to determine corrected time from actual time of a boat’s finish. A boat that finishes dead last, as I have on a few occasions, can still correct up and maybe even win a trophy. But one has to finish the race to win something. On Saturday, 23 of the 78 boats that entered the race received DNFs, or did not finish.

My crew and I motored out to Lotus, my C&C24, which is moored in West Neck Harbor, at 6:30 a.m. in the dark. It’s always a pleasure watching a beautiful sunrise once a year. The starts were staggered. The slowest division, which included Lotus, which is also the second slowest boat in the fleet, received the first horn at 8:30 a.m.. I was joined by my trusty crew of Dave Olsen, a crew member since 2007, Charlie Modica, crew member since 2009, and Linda Gibbs, who also happens to be the youngest crew member, who joined the crew in 2012. My first race was back in 1998.

Prior to winning the loyalty of this steadfast crew, I experienced several mutinies. In early October the weather can be lousy, cold and wet with out-of-control winds. For a 24-foot sailboat that can mean hours of pounding the waves when sailing upwind, and I don’t like quitting. As an example, on the way to the start line one year my crew mutinied. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that waves were breaking over the transom, stalling out the outboard and flooding the cockpit. I tried to explain that it was Jessup’s Neck and the water can be weird out there, but I didn’t have a chance against three lawyers, one of whom was a sitting DA. I couldn’t throw them overboard, but I can’t say it didn’t occur to me.

That was then. This past Saturday with a northeast wind we had a very pleasant sail and motor ride out to the start line. Five or more layers of clothing kept us semi-warm. The wind, however, kept building, and by start time it was really blowing and we reefed both sails. We had a great start and were leading several boats in our class. Remember, Lotus is ranked as the second slowest boat in the entire fleet so to be out in front of a few boats even for a little while is pretty good.

As we approached North Ferry, the wind kept building, gusting to 25 plus knots. The larger and faster boats caught up to and began passing us, making for close calls and ducking the stern of some boats at the last minute, or I should say second. By the time we rounded Hay Beach and headed towards buoy MOA in Gardiners Bay, the wind was shifting more out of the east with very few boats still behind us. We were still pounding into the waves, but the wind was starting to slow. Little did we know that within the hour we would be begging for the heavier wind. We laid the line to MOA on one tack and then headed south, downwind to Buoy N8 by Sag Harbor.

By the time we hit South Ferry, the wind was really starting to die down, as the weatherman had predicted. In Noyac Bay the water was as smooth as glass and our only movement was because of current. My wife, Debbie, and Linda’s husband, Tom, came by in a power boat and with what I’m sure were the kindest intentions, asked if we needed a tow. We forged ahead with an occasional gust of one to two knots of wind. We reached Jessup’s Neck with three hours to go until the 5:30 p.m. race cut off.

At that point, there were still seven boats behind us, some in our class, so we were hopeful until the unthinkable happened. The wind died completely at the least opportune time, and the extremely fast current started dragging us directly into buoy G17. We didn’t have enough time to drop an anchor to avoid colliding with the buoy, and were left with no choice but to start the motor even though that meant abandoning the race.

Oh well, as I’ve said many times before, “there’s always next year.”