Century Club: Jeffrey Halpern

This was supposed to be a Wednesday Night Race, except that it ended up being closer to the opening scene from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". 

"The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns—and even convictions." 

The crew of Starbird spent a pleasant evening being tolerant or even amused by each other's yarns and convictions. 

This was another AYC Wednesday Night Race that I did on Starbird, Frank Martien's Tartan 101. We had a great first and second leg of the race and then things kinda went down hill from there. But it was a great night to go racing even if we did not have a great race. It was a bit gusty and shifty and choppy making the race more interesting for us and placing a premium on Helmsmanship, sail handling and crew work overall. 

Saturday was the Poplar Island Shorthanded Race...Instead of a lively romp on the Bay, it turned out to be yet another race to nowhere.

The Poplar Island Race remains one of my favorite races. There is a long or a short course option, both are triangular courses. The racer gets to decide whether to round the course clockwise or counterclockwise adding a strategic challenge to the sailing challenges. 

Early in the week it looked like rain all day but lots of wind in the 10 to 15 knot range with higher gusts at times. As much as I hate being wet, I was really psyched to do this race.

But as the day approached, it looked like there would be a mid-day 'flat spot' near with only a couple knots of wind. I can deal with that. The race committee chose the short course just in case the flat spot lasted a while.

And sure enough on the way down to the start, there was the predicted steady 10 or so knot breeze. Cool!  But just as the starting sequence counted down, so did the wind. By the start there was barely 3-4 knots of wind. The race committee managed to get the three starts (Spinnaker, non spinnaker, and multihull) off the line and out on the course. All of the racers chose to head counterclockwise and so the first leg was a close reach that was roughly 2 miles long. 

Two and a half hours into the race, no one had rounded the first mark. Most of the distance covered had been the result of the outgoing tide, but now the tide had changed and the crab traps were starting to beat the slower boats. Even moving at .3 to .5 knots through the water, the GPS showed me doing 0.0 to 0.3 knots over the bottom. But at least it wasn't raining. 

Mercifully, the race committee chose to put us out of our misery and abandon the race. On the way, home the rain began, which only further dampened my spirits. 

This was a good one. I raced on the Tartan 101 "Starbird". The owner was not able to be on board so Julian Richards was the helmsman for the night. I got to call tactics, fly the chute, and otherwise pitch-in where needed. The crew work has greatly improved as the season has been progressing.. We seemed to have really good boat speed even on the legs that are not normally Starbird's strong suite. Except for picking the wrong end of the line at the start, the tactics worked out well and we once again continued the trend of improving our finish place place with each race.

Despite the dire predictions the day before, it turned out to be a lovely evening on the water. .