Tales from the CDCR: 4) The DNF Years . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

I've had nearly as many DNFs, as finishes over the years and while many times, IT WAS NOT MY FAULT! 
Like, when the race committee boat pulls up the marker you were struggling so valiantly to round all day, in light to non-existent winds, well, many of the DNFs WERE my fault. 
The three broad categories for these DNFs were:
1) Strong Drink
2) Lobsters.
3) Tides.

Strong Drink:
This only occurred a few times; the first time in the early '80's when I invited my closest friends and a co-worker aboard, four of us in total.
Usually I didn't carry alcohol aboard, since it seemed like more bother than it was worth to deal with wine bottles, beer bottles, etc.
But my buddy Jim, was partial to Courvoisier Cognac and he had brought some.
My buddy John, was a Big Fan of Planter's Punch made with Myers' Rum. (And after that weekend, so was I!!) 
Our co-worker Doug, liked a particular brand of Spanish Sherry, an Amontillado and had brought two bottles.
Remember the old grade school challenge from the Teacher, when you were caught with gum or candy? 
"Did you bring enough for everybody?" 
Well, they DID!! 
Our race class started close to 11:00AM that year, and a little after noon, when we had all munched our sandwiches, Doug decided to partake of his Sherry to finish off the meal.
These were light, small, sandwiches, because we had brought steaks for Jim, to grill in his best epicurean style, for supper.
He felt bad drinking alone, so he passed cups all around and we each had a cup of Sherry, just so as not to be rude, you understand. 
Jim (ever the gourmet) critiqued the Sherry and gave the opinion that Courvoisier Cognac would have been a far better digestif for our lunch.
(Ham and swiss cheese sandwiches on Cuban rolls?    I wondered, while mentally remembering to look up: "digestif" when I got back to shore.)
When Doug took exception and challenged him, Jim pulled out the Cognac for comparison purposes,
Due to some unfortunate timing, we were rounding a mark, with a lot of close boat traffic and everyone was forced to quickly gulp the Cognac, so we could handle the boat, the lines, and the sails.
Jim decided that was an unfair test, since he felt that Cognac should be savored slowly, and demanded a re-match and so cups were passed all around, again.

The day wore on and the winds lightened and began turning on us, requiring longer tacks to reach the marks.
As we got progressively warmer, John offered some cooling Planter's Punch and my!  THAT was quite thirst quenching in the heat!!
And it went down quite easily! 
After the second one, Doug decided maybe it was time for a Sherry comparison again, with Jim stoutly challenging Doug, with more Cognac.
By now the winds had shifted again, putting the final mark directly on our nose and winds at less than 6 knots.
I made a significant tactical mistake, attempting to tack with a drifter/reacher instead of a jib or genoa, since the winds were so light.
Never, ever, tried that again and to this day, don't know if I first learned that lesson that year, or if I'd already known it before and was simply drink-addled.

Either way, reaching the committee boat was a long time coming and they wasted no time pulling anchor and roaring off,    after we crossed the finish line for Saturday.
(The CDCR is a two-day race.)
Jim decided that the second bottle of Cognac that he had been saving, to cook the steaks with, should instead be broken out and savored apres race, which prompted Doug to also break out his second bottle of Sherry, to continue their on-going challenge.
John still had a fair amount of the GALLON of Planter's Punch he had made, figuring in his logical mind:
"Lessee here . . . . a gallon is a quart for each of us, divided by two days, equals one pint a piece, or two 8 oz.cups, over the course of a day. Sounds about right."
Except that punch, never saw the 2nd day.

Reaching the anchorage near Elliott Key well after dark, and being very tired and not just a little blitzed, nobody felt like moving things around, so Jim could cook supper.
The consensus was to simply finish the dregs of the punch (the other bottles having been long gone) and just turn in for the night.
My sailing companions were apparently made of sturdier stuff than myself, because I never even made it to my bunk, electing instead to sleep on the foredeck, wrapped in a drifter/reacher.
The winds swung around in the night, to the northwest from a cold front and I became quite chilled,    although not quite cold enough to go below, like a sensible person.
Or a sober one.   
The most I could manage, was to wrap more and more layers of head sail around me, until I had thoroughly "burrito-ed" myself in Dacron.
Awoke the next morning, with a bow cleat impression branded on my cheek and a bow chock impression branded on my temple, which I took to be the reason for a massive headache. 
After a few moments, trying to remember my name, and where I was,    I checked my watch.
Ouch.
The mental Time/Distance navigational computer in my head kicked in and I realized we were roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes beyond any possible hope of reaching the Sunday starting line on time, from where we were anchored.
Factor in the winds being on our nose again, no thanks to the overnight cold front, and then factor in the winds being even lighter than yesterday afternoon and now, the new T/D estimate was closer to 5-7 hours.

I heard stirring below, some grumbling,    a few groans and John and Doug came on deck and sat in the cockpit, while Jim (ever the gourmet cook) busied himself with preparing steak and eggs for breakfast, since we had never gotten around to cooking the steaks the night before and there wasn't enough ice left in the ice chest, for the steaks to survive a trip back home.
It was a delicious, and superb, albeit, rather a quiet, breakfast, (shallots in the omelet, was a bold flavor choice!    Wonder how it would be with an Amontillado?)    and afterwards, the crew looked expectantly at the Captain, as to a course of action.
I explained the logistics of course, distance and weather, leading to our being out of the race, while looking at the waves, the sky, and the winds.
Hmmm . . . . .  the front was moving rather quickly and the winds would clock back more easterly, soon.
I suggested we all take a nap and wait for the wind to swing around a little, at least to the northeast, so could reach back, in what winds there were.
That was a more popular suggestion than I would have guessed and at least, I made it to my bunk, this time. 

Lobsters:
John, Jim and I, were inveterate lobster hunters. 
While August 6th is famous for the start of Lobster season, it actually goes from August 6th to March 31st.
If there have been no hurricanes that year (which scatters them), October is a really good time to go lobstering.
And that space between Elliott Key and Black Ledge, (the Sunday CDCR Starting point) is a prime lobstering area.
One year, on our way to the starting line, looking over the side in the gin-clear waters of south Biscayne Bay, I saw numerous horns sticking out from under a ledge.
I always had a face mask and fins aboard in case I had to fix something under the boat, or free a stuck anchor, or something.
We had a little time before our start, so I thought I would take a quick look and hopped over the side.
Wow!!    A BUNCH of lobsters and all pretty good-sized! 
We didn't have our usual lobster gear aboard, gloves, tickle sticks, size gauges, bully nets etc. but we did have a lobster gauge for checking if legal sized, or not.
We commandeered a batten from the main sail to use as a tickle stick and quickly developed a procedure whereby I went below, tickled a lobster out, grabbed him with my hand that was wrapped in a tee-shirt (no gloves, to protect from their spiny carapace; they're not called the "spiny lobster" for nothing)    and surfaced and tossed him into the cockpit.
The lobster was picked up with a towel, then checked for being egg-bearing or not (a little early for that, that time of the year, but you never know), then checked for legal size or not and then either tossed back over the side, or put in the ice chest.
6 lobsters per diver, per day and by the time our race had started, we had ¾ of our limit on board!!   
Might have lost the race, (again!)    but we won: DINNER!! 

The following year, and for several years thereafter, all lobster-hunting paraphernalia was already aboard on CDCR weekends and we rarely made it to a Sunday race start.
This continued until the National Park Service took over all of Biscayne National Monument in 1999 and decided that the park waters were off-limits for lobster diving.

Tides:
The Saturday race start is by a lighted marker just outside Dinner Key, but the Sunday start mark is near Black Ledge, an underwater ledge of coral and oolite, in south Biscayne Bay.
Black Ledge would not be much of an issue, except for that wide-open area just east of it.  Seems when the whole  Atlantic Ocean comes rushing in on an incoming tide, it hits that ledge and generates some really strong currents.
Solution: Don't try to go north, on an incoming tide, if you're near Black Ledge.
As it happens, the vagaries of month and day and tide and race start times, invariably conspired against the Gunkhole Class.
The winds get very light just about the time our start happens and the tide is usually strongest just about the time our start happens, which is always into the wind; a sadistic ploy to separate the real racers from the rest of the fleet comprised of people like, well, . . . . . like me. 
The PHRF gung-ho handicap racers have it good, as their much earlier race starts have better winds and little adverse tides; most years, right at slack tide.
Not so, for the Gunkhole Class.   
Some years, there seemed to be no way to get over that starting line; all the best efforts at course and sail trim would have you just inching along, until all your handicap time had been eaten up and there was no longer a mathematical way to win. 
With the advent of affordable GPS receivers, we sometimes discovered to our dismay and consternation, that our VMG was a negative number!!   
One tactic was to cross the starting line at a flat angle to the line from one extreme end to the other end, in an effort to get as close to a reach as possible and swamp out the effects of the tides and the Black Ledge currents and the lighter winds.
Rarely worked;    worked just barely often enough, to keep trying it.
Once over the line, you had the whole Bay in which to steer away from the line, the ledge, and the tides and get to somewhere the tides weren't pushing on you so hard.
For years and years, the Sunday Start was the worst part of the whole weekend, and a frustrating exercise.
Then one year, I decided to go rogue, and think outside the box.
I did not join into the area where all the other boats milled about, waiting for their class to start.
I went to windward as close as I could pinch and went in front of the Race Committee boat (and the starting line) and off to the east side of it.
When it got to the 5-minute warning mark, I sailed directly downwind, coasting on that wretched tide and hugging right up against the committee boat.
When the starting signal sounded, I sling-shotted around the committee boat and used my boat's momentum, to get over that line and then to immediately bear away from Black Ledge and get to a more open, tranquil part of the Bay.
I was as elated,    as I was astonished,    that it worked!! 
Did that for several years, until the CDCR began to deteriorate until finally, the Gunkhole Class was relegated to a one-day race with no Black Ledge tides anywhere in sight.
For which, I was profoundly grateful.
NOW, when I get a DNF, it is usually my fault. 

Charles Brennan