Sailboat Racing on Siesta

Craig's List is a pretty interesting classifieds page. It is frankly, stealing the local newspaper's hold on classified listings ... it is free. You can list all sorts of stuff there. For some reason, I typed in "Sailing" and found a "Crew Wanted" article.
I responded to the ad with an email and next thing you know, I'm looking at a 44 foot sailboat that is built for nothing but racing.


There were more lines, blocks and winches on this boat than I have ever seen! Her name is Siesta and I was pretty excited to be able to sail her.
Every Friday night out of Ala Wai harbor is the Friday night races. There are some big boats there and Siesta is one of the biggest and fastest. I wasn't really prepared for big boat racing. I had never operated a "grinder" or knew what it did. Racing on the J-22 is a different experience from these bigger boats. Below is a picture of me on the grinder of Siesta.


I must have done something right as they invited me out to sail the entire Memorial Day weekend. It was an around the island race and would take up all 3 days of the weekend. I love sailing but I couldn't give up my weekend with Kathy, Krista and Tucker.
I declined the offer but then figured out where they would be and when they would be there. Tucker and I drove out to Spitting Cave which is at a point of the island where the depth is such that the sailboats would be close. Me and my trusty long lens capture a couple dozen pictures of the boats zipping by. They were moving at a very good clip. Siesta is below just ahead of another boat.

The following Friday, I joined them again for racing. There weren't enough crew and I wondered why. The captain complained bitterly about not having reliable crew as we waited. Just before race time, one last person arrived and we headed out. In addition to the sailing crew, we also had 4 Japanese tourists who were friends of one of the crew. They were told where to sit and when to sit there ... only two actually knew English.
The race was pretty good and we got off to a good start. The winds were light for the most part. Even so, the captain yelled at people commanding what to do as if it were an emergency. It was tough to be a crew member. My turn came and he yelled at me. I did what he asked and he yelled some more. We had a communication problem. He was in the wrong. I pointed it out to him. He calmed down a bit but attempted to make light of the situation by teasing me about my experiences on a "small boat" ... the J-22's.

We finished the race in 3rd place out of about 10 boats. On Saturday, I received an apology email from the captain. It was a nice note.

Racing is exciting and even sometimes dangerous. More can happen than the boom hitting you in the face (yes, I have a scar beside my nose because of that). You can lose a finger by getting it tangled in a line or you can trip on a line and go overboard. I am a very careful sailor and an even more careful racer just because things happen so fast.

My initial foray into racing was on a Catalina 22 with my friends, Bob Smith, Steve Soroka and Bill Toth. My desire was to learn to sail. After I learned to sail, I kept racing with this crew for about 10 years ... by why? It wasn't the competition, we always seemed to lose. It was the camaraderie and companionship.

I examined my racing with Siesta. This wasn't about camaraderie or companionship and I could never see it becoming about that. If I sail, I just want to sail and not necessarily race. It took a while to figure that out ... I'm slow I guess!
So, I've decided that racing on Siesta isn't for me. Actually, racing isn't for me unless it is with my friends from back east. Where else can a guy get such great nicknames like Monkey Knuckles and Mega pixel ???