Which way is up? The Crash explained. Sort of.

Finally, after much hemming and hawing, we were flying the spinnaker on day 10 or 11 or something. I was third on the wheel and nervous as h3ll. Most regular readers here know that I haven't driven much under spinnaker and, truth be told, still haven't much.

I took the wheel with about 20 knots of wind and 6-8 foot seas, not too bad. For about 20 minutes I think I did alright, keeping the boat moving, hitting 10.5 knots (at that point, the record) and sailing on course. Then everyone started joking about the squall behind us, err, the squall behind *me*. Not funny guys, but I turned around, grimaced, did some advanced mathematics to determine that I'd still be on the wheel when it hit, and quietly swore under my breath.

Next thing you know, it hits us, the wind picks up and I realized quickly I was in over my head. I asked to have the pole forward and sheets eased right before the wind picked up and to this day don't know if that happened. If I'd had the sense to shut up, it would have just been a roundup without anyone making fun of me, but I had the stupid ass idea to say, "I can't handle this at 27 knots" as my roundup started. Then the boat was this way:



And we were bathing comfortably in 70+ degree saltwater. I had the wheel hard over, the sheets and the guy were eased and VALIS righted herself. I remember distinctly getting back on course and noticing that the kite wouldn't fill. I kept telling the sheet trimmer this but it's all blurry and I don't know what was being done about it. I might have been the only person who could see that the kite had something wrapped around it halfway up so it had an hourglass shape going. (note: Rich is convinced I was still steering starboard, he may be right).

See, this is when the real problem happened, I couldn't steer the boat (either because I'm an idiot or the kite was out of whack) and suddenly the main backwinded and, oh sh!t, we were rounding down, a much more serious turn of events. Whoosh, we were over on our OTHER SIDE, like this:



And, then, the worst thing almost happened. When the Oh Eight Pac Cup was on, VALIS had a round-down and lost her helm-cushion. I looked over the side of the boat and saw the cushion starting to float away and realized I only had two jobs, keep the wheel hard over and grab that derned cushion. I did both admirably.

As I pulled the cushion back on the boat, Paul eased the preventer, the boat gybed, and I hove to. Taking a deep breath, I noticed that the spinnaker snuffer was broken. Then Tirso said, "dude, don't worry about that, you broke the pole". Erk. That's a lot of money and a lot of sharp little bits of carbon all over the place.

Paul, Tirso, John and Rich did a herculean job of getting the spinnaker back in the boat with no rips. They got the pole sorted out and stowed. We all made sure nothing more was broken as I kept the boat hove to (later realizing, I could have just locked the wheel and helped out). Finally, Rich gave the OK to gybe and start sailing under main alone...I argued for a bit about the giant piece of scrap metal stuck on the shroud that would puncture the main if we gybed. We finally pulled out the slide rule, Rich computed an algorithm or two, and we determined the main was safe. I gybed and we started sailing again.

A bit more sorting and we poled out the genoa with the other carbon pole (bless Paul and his thorough boat prep). And were back to the races.

Paul screenprinted all of the data from the previous eight hours to show our 2 hour break in the middle of the ocean while I flopped the boat over to inspect the keel...on each side. And then he started making fun of me...pointing at the wind. "Oh not, it's 28 knots! Be careful out there!" "Eeek, the wind!" And so on and so on.

Me being the modest type never pointed out to him that "hey dude I saved your freaking seat cushion so you wouldn't need the monkey-butt powder." I'm just not appreciated.

Wishing for the Darkness

I'm not going to name names because what happens on the boat stays on the boat. Or something like that. I even have photographic evidence but am holding that in my special blackmail folder I keep on all people that I know (or know about). But I do have to tell the story.

Prompted by Tirso's comment on The Darkness identifying himself as the sailor at the wheel when I popped my head out of the companionway (not late by the way, that only happened once dammit), I have to tell another story of coming on watch and the pitfalls that accompany it.

This night wasn't so dark. In fact it wasn't even night yet, sort of late afternoon {editor's note: it is impossible to tell what time it truly is at sea since we keep our watches on Pacific Time and generally only have a hazy idea of where we are and what time zone it is at any given time). But I digress, the point is I popped my head out of the companionway while it was still light out to see Tirso at the wheel staring straight ahead, scared to flinch any muscles that could direct his gaze to starboard. This is weird because Tirso is a compulsive compass-starer, but this day he wasn't looking at anything let alone the compass.

And I soon found out why, but I'm not going to share that yet. First let me tell you about our watch schedules. We each stood a 3 hour 2 person watch but they were staggered. So when I relieved Tirso, I would have an hour and a half with one watchmate who would get relieved and I'd have an hour and a half with the new guy. This is a great system because you always have somebody fresh and the transitions are seamless. So, when I relieved Tirso, there was a guy still on watch who was to take the wheel.

So, back to prairie dogging myself out the companionway to this surreal scene of Tirso staring intently at the horizon and a mystery un-named crewmember sitting to starboard wearing his foulie top, life jacket and tether, and a pair of hi-tech underwear. And nothing else. Ummm, yep, nothing else.

I decided the appropriate course of action was to pretend this wasn't happening. Heck, we hadn't been at sea long enough for "this behavior" to start. So, I sat on port and pondered the situation. We had a clearly freaked out helmsman, a mostly naked watchmate, and a few minutes early me. Just sitting there, contemplating the underwear.

It was such a magnificent moment that I can't remember how the ice was broken but it was something like, "hey, where are your pants?" The reply was something along the lines of, "these are high tech underwear from REI!" You know, a normal conversation in the middle of the ocean.

Well, this couldn't go on forever so the de-pantsed crew member took the wheel, Tirso ran off like a frightened little puppy and for the next hour and a half we sailed the boat like nothing was different. Well, other than asking for permission to photograph the event .... which was granted. And filed away in the blackmail folder, ready for publication when the moment is right.

So, another crew member, wearing pants, popped up an hour and a half later for his watch. And the scene repeated itself. Except this time, it was the pantsless one being relieved. Only thing is, he hung around because, hell, what's better than hanging out in the cockpit with a couple of guys while you lounge in your underwear? Err, high tech underwear.

Again, I'm not going to "out" this sailor. In fact, with the myriad of crew changes that happened on VALIS in the days/weeks before the race, it might be impossible to figure out who was even on the boat. But I will leave you with my last comment to Tirso before I hopped into a cab to go to the airport in Kaneohe: "How on Earth did you get that man naked? I need to know your secret!"

But seriously, anyone who maligns a sailing trip to Hawaii as anything less than terrifying needs to remember this: strange and dangerous things happen at sea, you never know when you're going to get caught pants down.