Round the island race

Hi everyone,

Mary and I did the around the island race yesterday and had a great time. The race is 19 miles and involves sailing around Stocking Island. It really is a beautiful course and the highlights are sailing through the cuts at either end of the island. The Elizabeth Harbour portion is quite calm and involved downwind sailing but the open ocean portion consisted of a long hard slog to windward. It was a thorough beating, actually. With 20+knots of wind and whitecaps everywhere I normally wouldn't even bother, but those were the conditions, so we did it. I am happy to report no breakage, and my 30 year old working jib that I sewed myself managed to hold together.

This race was an excellent example of why I don't race anymore, however. Early in the morning the race committee chair came on the radio and said they had decided to reverse the days of the 2 races, based on the strong winds and lumpy seas on the ocean. The committee was having a difficult time setting the marks at the cuts, and they were quite concerned about running the race safely. The in the harbour race, scheduled for Sunday promised lighter winds. So they wanted to have the in the harbour race instead. Immediately after this announcement, an extremely snotty Canadian came on the radio and just skewered Dale, the race chair, for making this last minute decision. Several other folks, equally caustic, chimed in as well. Keep in mind that all these folks have big, powerful monohulls or catamarans and obviously didn't care if smaller boats were going to get beat up. It would also give a clear advantage to those bigger boats. Well, the bad behaviour had its desired effect and Dale reversed his decision. There were a few plaintive calls from the smaller boat crowd, but they were drowned out by the loud and the whiney. Remember, this was billed as a FUN race. Another example of this type of behaviour occurred partway through the race, when it became evident that the mark at the eastern cut had blown far off station due to the wind. Immediately, people were concerned about the possibility of other competitors cutting the corner and shaving a few feet off the course. The suggestion was made that people have the track lines in their chart plotters examined after the race to make sure they weren't cheating. Since I don't have a chart plotter I could only assume I would be disqualified, but as one of the small boats getting punished out on the ocean the big shots didn't worry about me.

Finally, there was another ugly little incident where one boat was trying to luff up another boat, forcing him into water that was too shallow and the race committee had to intervene. It had been made abundantly clear before the race that the controlling ethics would be fun, safety, and consideration, but these all went by the wayside in short order.

So, Mary and I had an awesome sail, and I had an excellent reminder of why I no longer engage in sailboat racing! That said, I will sail in the in the harbour race tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a bit more civilized!

Best to all, Charlie