Crew Race

The HISC annual Crew Race is the opportunity for the crew of the boat to be in charge and call the shots. What does this mean for the crew?

The normal skipper of the boat should not be the person who drives the boat being raced. The regular skipper should not be the navigator. The joke among racers is, don’t put the skipper on the pointy end of the boat but in this race, which may be where they end up.

On Commotion, we used this race as prep for the Ladies Day Regatta. This year, as skipper, I was lucky to have two very experienced racers who were very patient with the crew and were amazing coaches. My female crew experience ranged from a seasoned racers to newish racers, to never raced in a regatta and had more book experience than boat experience.

Race day was sunny and hot with puffy clouds bringing welcome shade and Saharan dust causing the sky to have an odd white haze. We pulled off the dock and motor sailed 10 miles to the start line north of HI. Unfortunately, minutes after we cleared Port Everglades, one crew member fell ill to seasickness and never fully recovered until she got her feet on land. As skipper I had to reconfigure crew positions with this new hiccup in the day. We had also decided to race JAM based on crew experience and the expectation of the wind increasing.

With crew positions given out, we milled about practicing tacks and jibes. Reviewing terminology and getting everyone speaking the same language. When you sail on multiple boats, you learn that almost everything has multiple names and names specific to each boat. Jibs, genoas, spinnaker, asym, A-sail, chute, symmetrical, #1, #2,150,120,110. ACK! How do I learn it all and make sense of it?! And each boat has pet names for things, so that adds to the learning curve.

We had 4 boats participating in the Crew Race. Contrails and Commotion in JAM. Cookie Monster and Duet in ARC. The Race Committee chose a course, 2x around. Start, virtual, HI, finish and go around again. We agreed to start both sections together so at 10:55 our trusty Beach Committee started the prep count down and the race began. The start got a little crowded with Cookie and Duet coming from the west along the beach and Contrails and Commotion going for the mark/pin end. Commotion arrived 20 seconds early and had to scrub off speed. We missed peeling Contrails off the pin but had an exciting start with Contrails sneaking inside Commotion at the pin.

The crew was instructed to grind to close hauled. The boat felt sluggish for a few minutes with the other boats pointing higher. The sails got trimmed, the speed picked up, we got into a groove, and we were first around the virtual mark. Once around, we eased the sails and headed to HI. This point of sail felt slow and messy. We did a bit of maneuvering to avoid a string of divers smack dab in the middle of the course to HI. Cookie Monster deployed their bright red spinnaker and took the high and long way to HI. Cookie Monster got in front of us and rounded the mark 500 yards ahead. While we were jibing around HI, Cookie Monster was grappling their spinnaker and was experiencing the fun of a spinnaker take down gone wrong. The halyard stuck, the wind piped up and we saw a bit of their bottom paint as well as mad scrambling on the foredeck. Commotion and Contrails took advantage of their misfortune and charged ahead.

Commotion tacked around the start mark into the second leg of the course. The virtual mark is a challenge to sail to since you are sailing to a mark on your chart plotter while also trying to drive, look around and keep an eye out for anything odd happening. On the second leg to HI, we started to hear rumbles of thunder and could see activity to our S-SE that we hoped we would avoid.

During each leg of the race, my patient and wise navigator would make comments to guide me, keep me focused and instruct the crew on where to sit. My husband was patiently coaching the female crew on sail trim and main sail handling.

The final jibe around HI was beautifully executed by the crew and Commotion powered up for her final drive to the finish. The wind had piped up to 12-14 which was perfect for us. We were seeing 8-8.5 knots, and the finish was in sight. A single sentence from the navigator had me modify my course to the finish and the Beach Committee radioed that they had us in their sites for the finish line. We finished the race, rolled up the jib and milled about taking note of our competitors’ finish times. We managed to finish ahead of Contrails by enough time to take first place!

It takes many hands to put a race together and as the Race Chair, I am thankful for everyone who helps out. Thank you David & Gretchen Burdett, Norma Glanz, and Julian Veitch for managing Beach Committee. Thak you Jim Wallace, Tom Jockers and Seth Schulman for mark duty. Thank you Eduardo and Eva for hosting the party. Thank you racers for participating.

On Commotion, a big thank you to Ross Hunton and Carl Wehe for being awesome “coaches and naviguesser “.