Fair Wind For Montego Bay

The Sweet Young Thing says: "But what do you do at night? Isn't it too deep to anchor?" The Dowager: "My husband used to be a sailor, too, but we sold the yacht—it became so difficult to find good captains and stewards, you know." The Defensive End Type: "Hell, ocean racing is another sissy sport. No physical contact, no chance of getting hurt. You don't even have to be in shape. Anyone can sail a boat."

So let's try to tell it like it is, circa 1971.

1200 Friday 19 March. Start. On the way to the line the 10 of us aboard Solution wedge shorts and sweaters and foul-weather gear in chinks between sail bags, processed food, electronic equipment, tools and spares. But we live in luxury in comparison with some of our competitors, who to save weight are stripped to the functional efficiency of a dentist's office without the comfort of the chair. We have bunks instead of canvas stretched between pipes, drawers and hanging lockers rather than flight bags whose capacity may not be exceeded.

As we near a committee boat anchored off Miami Beach the shoal water is a pale frothy green, but a mile out awaits the deep purple blue of the ocean abyss. Our main is reefed, yet we prepare to set a big reaching jib. There is a snicker when the final radio forecast of the morning warns, "Small craft should exercise caution." A cold front is on the way, with fresh southerly winds ahead of the squall line and strong northerlies behind. Already the wind has clocked to south-southeast, which will permit a fast and painless crossing of the Gulf Stream.

It is a fleet rather than class start, so the 33 entries mill in close quarters. Overall lengths range from 33 to 73 feet with matching speed differentials. Maneuvering is like Piper Cubs and 747 jets trying to make the same runway without a control tower. The gun fires and all is magically still, except for the plash of our bow wave, the hiss of water rushing past the lee rail, sibilant whispers from aloft. Our skipper, Thor Ramsing, has made a fine start. We are ahead of the pack at the weather end of the line. With 811 nautical miles between us and the finish at Montego Bay, Jamaica, we settle down and look around.

Solution is a yawl, 53 feet overall, designed by Sailmaker Ted Hood. Appropriate to an era of radical departures from tradition, she has no keel whatever, but an intricate system of winches allows a large centerboard to be moved fore and aft as well as up and down. There are trim tabs on the trailing edge to help steering, and even another centerboard in the rudder. Yet we are conservative beside others in the fleet. My eye falls on a sloop emblazoned with the name Improbable. She has the deadly fast look of a surfaced shark. On our other beam, down to leeward, the big boats of the fleet—Windward Passage, Ondine and American Eagle—have begun their private fight, but Passage opens out like a rabbit in front of greyhounds. Already there seems the possibility of a record voyage.

1830. With dusk, Great Isaac Light is close abeam. Barely visible to port is Northeast Rock, while hidden ahead lurk the Brothers and the sunken coral fangs of Gingerbread Reef, which we must pass in total darkness. Our perspective of the Bahamas is that of the sailor, not the tourist: one of the most dangerous archipelagoes in the world, formations rising almost vertically from great depths, unpredictable currents sweeping onto shoal banks, few trustworthy lights. The race circular describes our course in a paragraph deceptively simple: "From the starting line, northeasterly leaving Great Isaac to starboard, thence easterly leaving Eleuthera Island to starboard, thence southward leaving Cuba to starboard and finally westward through the Caribbean to the finish." Navigators will be under pressure to cut corners beyond the point of safety.

We lead a pack of competitors through the slot between the Brothers but have our first trouble. Somewhere in the Gulf Stream a cotter pin at the bow pulpit holed our precious reaching jib. Gradually the rip enlarged, but we held on for smoother water. Now we shift to a genoa jib having less drive. We are a little slow; as a crew we are strange to the boat and to each other. During the time required to make the change, Improbable and Panacea slip past while Bay Bea and Salty Tiger close on us. Steve Connett begins to sew the reacher as the four of us in the port watch go below. There are fewer bunks than crew, so we are using the "hot bunk" system, standard on ocean racers. I slide under a blanket still warm as my opposite number, George Moffett, starboard watch officer, goes on deck. Solution rushes through the night without incident, but the 55-foot cutter Dora, a speedster from Chicago, is not so lucky: she slams into a coral head at 10 knots. The shock is terrific, but she bounces over. "It was a question if we had lost three feet of keel or had knocked off three feet of rock," reflected a crewman over a beer in Montego Bay, "but I guess it was the coral that gave." And as an afterthought: "Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

2330. We reset the repaired reacher at change of watch. There is an immediate difference in speed and feel. Wind is still SSE, about 18 knots. Glorious sailing, sea small, stars bright, the loom of Great Stirrup Cay visible. There is much marine traffic in Providence Channel. Aboard one of the smallest boats, the navigator of Doxy notes in the log: "Cruise ships look like phosphorescent caterpillars crawling toward Nassau."

0758 Saturday 20 March. We set a spinnaker after a period of indecision. Doing nine knots plus with the reacher at daylight, wind barely abaft the beam and fresh, sea lumpy. Solution is not an easy boat to steer in these conditions: lack of lateral plane seems to make her pivot on the centerboard, so the bow skids off to leeward, inviting overcorrection. But the breeze clocks a bit more toward the south and west, and multicolored nylon parachutes blossom in the fleet. Panacea and Arieto, our most dangerous class rivals, slowly gain. So up spinnaker, and the helmsman's—and cook's—ordeal begins. From below come sounds of catastrophe as the stove wallows in its gimbals, but Betty Jane Beach—also known as Cookie Galore and BJ—is unflappable. Breakfast consists of grapefruit, western omelet, bacon and waffles.