The Excitement of a Sailboat Race (With Pictures)

Out on the water, on the way to the race course...  much commotion.  Readying the boat for the day's racing.  Sails being moved around, lines being run, the crew prepping themselves.  The jobs are being assigned while the skipper is studying the wind.  It is decided…  Today there will be some breeze, but not too much.  Skipper tells us which sails we will use at the start of the race.  Sails brought up from down below, attached to the lines, to the boom.

Near the starting line now…  the mainsail needs to go up.  The skipper heads the boat into the wind and calls for the hoisting of the mainsail.  People are at the mast, feeding the sail in the track and jumping to pull on the halyard with much force.  Ratcheting noises from the cockpit…  there are people there too, tailing the halyard for the jumper on the winch and manning the mainsheet.  The huge mainsail is up.  The skipper heads the boat off the wind and the boat starts heeling.  The rumble turns to the quiet sound of the bow wake and waves hitting the boat as the skipper shuts off the engine.  We are sailing now.

We hear the warning signal from the race committee boat.  Six minutes to the first start.  We watch as the boats in the first start get ready and stay out of their way.  All of the crew members and especially the skipper watch the boats ahead of us start and head up the course, trying to find clues to what the wind is doing up the course.  We look for the signs on the water, ripples and waves. 

Now we hear the gun we’ve been waiting for, signaling the start just ahead of us and our five-minute warning.  Someone hit the timer at the gun.  The instrument readout 4:59, 4:58, 4:57.  Skipper calls for the headsail hoisted.  Someone’s on the bow, making sure the sail goes into the head foil track.  Someone jumping at the mast again.  More ratcheting from the cockpit as someone mans the jib sheet.  Now we are really healing and accelerating.  People, done with their hoisting jobs now are sitting on the high side rail. 

Running the line to see how much time it takes to get from one end to the other.  It doesn’t take much time, the line’s not that long and there is good breeze today.  Skipper wants to start at the boat end, that side of the line looks favored.  We weave back through the boats in our class, back toward the boat end of the line.

The one minute warning and our adrenaline starts really pumping.  We try to position ourselves for clear air.  We are coming through on port tack and have to duck a few boats.  It slows us down… will we be able to get there fast enough now?  We are almost right behind the race committee boat.  Skipper calls for the tack.  The boat is over and ratcheting sounds from the cockpit again.  People in the cockpit letting off the old jib sheet, trimming in the new jib sheet, controlling the mainsail.  Those who were left on the rail sliding across the boat to the other side, to once again sit on the high side.  Someone’s on the bow now, calling distance to the line.  On starboard tack now, but not the most windward boat.

The time is ticking away, we are two boat lengths from the line, 5 seconds to the gun.  The boat on top of us is calling for room.  We have to give it to them so we let out the sail a bit to head down some.  The gun… a good start. 

We don’t have clear air and are looking to tack.  We are playing a waiting game, the windward boat won’t let us go.  Still waiting…  Finally they have edged out ahead of us some.  We don’t have a clear lane, but their windshadow is slowing us down.  We tack, knowing that we will have to duck behind them.  Sometimes you just have to take what you can get.  We are passed the boat and tack back over.  Ahhh, clear air.

Boats are now tacking to come back in.  We tack too.  The wind is backing some up here on the course.  We are edging ahead of the boats on the other side of the course.  We thrown in two short hitches to try to get an advantage of the boat ahead of us. 

Now we have reached the layline.  We tack and are on our final approach to the mark.  The skipper calls for the proper spinnaker and the bow person hooks it up.  We want to go right on the next leg… we are set up for a jibe set.  Our short hitches paid off, we are on the inside of the mark and the boats outside have to give us room.

We are at the mark.  We jibe around it.  The pole is coming up, the spinnaker is being hoisted.  Lots of ratcheting in the cockpit now, people manning the spinsheets and guys, jibsheets, halyards, mainsheets.  It is up all the way and we square the pole.  We bring down the jib as fast as we can, we need all of the air in the kite we can get. 

We are really running with the wind now.  People are moving to the back of the boat.  The trimmer is constantly adjusting the sail…  with just the proper curl.  We were the first around the mark and have to fight to keep our place.  We have a good spinnaker trimmer and we are adding to our lead.

 Boy are we moving fast.  Boats that were right with us at the mark are now behind us.  This is smooth sailing.

We are almost to the finish.  We have to throw in a jibe to make the finish line.  The pole has to be moved forward, then the bowman trips the kite.  Everyone is busy.  The pole is now squared on the other side… and we are running neck and neck with another boat that made out on the other side of the course. 

Almost there, almost there.  We bring the pole forward and ease the chute, just maybe...  The gun…  We got the gun…  We won, barely…  Our kite crossed the line just barely ahead of the other boat.

 
We are all happy.  But we don’t celebrate too much now, that will be done at the dock.  We have a long ride back in, and everything has to be taken down, folded, coiled and put away.