CHAPTER 1

WELCOME TO THE RACECOURSE

To those not familiar with the sport, sailboat racing can seem like a study incontrolled chaos, with very little in the way of control. One moment you'll seeclumps of boats sailing off in opposite directions, spreading themselves so thinit's hard to tell if they are even part of the same group. Next they'll allhoist their spinnakers at the same time and sail along in a neat and tidy line.The start, in particular, can seem like a kind of waterborne madness. Aboard thecommittee boat, where the race committee administers the race, horns blare andflags go rushing up and down halyards, while the fleet of competitors circlesabout in what appears to be impossibly tight quarters, like hyperactive terrierssniffing the wind. A small powerboat with a couple of bright-orange inflatablebuoys charges off to windward. Then all of a sudden a flag comes down, there'syet another blast of the horn, or maybe a gun, and some of the boats that hadbeen milling about, apparently aimlessly, begin charging off in the samedirection. Amazing! How did they know it was their turn? How do they keep frombumping into each other? And how do they even know where they're going?

Fortunately, as is the case with most racing sports—whether it be a NASCARoval or a high school track—the courses in sailboat racing are generallyvery simple, and the rules not much worse. What follows is a brief narrative ofa hypothetical sailboat race, along with an explanation of the different kindsof courses used in sailboat racing. The one big difference between sailing andmany other racing sports is that there are no lanes or other obvious dividers tokeep the boats from crashing into each other. The rules, though, make short workof this problem, with help from the fact that boats can be easily differentiatedfrom one another by their angle of sail. Another difference is that the coursefor a sailboat race can be tough to spot, since it is delineated by just ahandful of buoys, or "marks," spread over what can sometimes be miles of openwater. To address this problem, the sport has evolved a system of flags, horns,guns, and other signals that clearly communicate where you're supposed to go.It's all very "Age of Nelson stuff," one more reason why sailboat racing is socool.

A HYPOTHETICAL RACE

Whether it's a national championship regatta with just one type of boatcompeting or a casual Wednesday night jaunt around the buoys with an assortmentof boats taking part in a number of different groups, or classes (also referredto as sections), every sailboat race has a certain kind of energy toit—especially for someone venturing out onto the racecourse for the firsttime. In fact, the excitement begins as soon as you reach the dock. There's anelectricity in the air as dozens of sailors in sunglasses and racing caps hurryback and forth carrying brightly colored sail bags, spinnaker poles, and otherpieces of hardware.

Casting off your lines you either motor or sail out to the committee boat, whichwaits at anchor like some kind of Pied Piper or a shepherd out tending hisflock. Then you check in by sailing close alongside and calling out your sailnumber. The number of boats quickly multiplies, and they all begin sailing backand forth, while the crew on the committee boat gauges the wind direction,decides how to orient the racecourse, and drops an inflatable orange buoy intothe water maybe 50 or 100 yards away to create a starting line. (This distancecan fluctuate dramatically depending on the size of the fleet, but will ideallybe about 1.5 times the number of boats times the boats' individual lengthsoverall.) Minutes later the aforementioned flags and horns make theirappearance. One of the crew aboard your boat notes that the committee is callingfor a "windward-leeward" course consisting of four stages, or legs, goingdirectly up- and downwind, and then the first section of the fleet goes chargingoff to windward, hell-bent for leather. After that comes another set of flagsand another section takes off. Then it's your turn. Throwing in a few quicktacks and jibes, you bunch up along the line with the other boats in your class,in what you are sure is going to be a terrible pileup. Then, at the sound of ahorn, you all charge off to windward in the same direction as the other boatsbefore you, some of which already appear to be little more than dots on thehorizon.

At this point, things settle down for a bit. The boats in your class slowlyseparate as they tack back and forth in an effort to sail as quickly as possibleto where the first mark, or windward mark, has been dropped in the water a mileor two directly to windward, indicating the turning point at the end of thefirst leg of the race. On occasion you find yourself either crossing tracks withor sailing parallel to another boat. Other times it feels like you've got thecourse to yourself. Eventually, someone sights the mark—still little morethan an orange speck on the horizon—and before you know it things arestarting to get complicated again as you prepare to hoist the spinnaker for thenext leg. Your widely separated competitors begin to converge, many of themlining up close-hauled on starboard tack and quickly advancing toward the buoy.Others angle in on port tack and tack over onto starboard at the last minute.Then it's like the start all over again. What seems like the entire fleetjostles for position, as the different crews hoist their spinnakers as quicklyas possible and maneuver their boats as efficiently as they can, both throughthe crowd and around the buoy.

After that there's another period of relative calm as the fleet makes its wayback downwind, once again spreading out as the boats jibe back and forth to makethe most of the wind. Then it's time to look out for the leeward mark (the buoydelineating the turning point at the end of the downwind leg), decide on thefastest way to get there, and bunch up again with the rest of the boats for thenext mark rounding—an exercise that is further complicated by your havingto both hoist the jib and take down the spinnaker, an exercise fraught withhazard. Hopefully, by this time, the boats in both your class and the entirefleet are spread out enough that it won't be too terribly crowded at the mark,and you can make a nice clean rounding. If not, well, a little chaos at theleeward mark is all part of the fun.

Once you've got the rounding...