You never know which way life will go. One of the interesting turns in my life was an opportunity to sail in the Quarter Ton Worlds in 1976. A young gentleman in France had qualified to represent France. His only problem was that he had no boat or money. Since the race was to be held in Corpus Christi Texas, his solution was to write letters to boat owners in this part of the country offering to skipper their boat if they could provide the funds to compete. He found a willing owner in Fort Worth, and I agreed to be part of the crew.
It was clear that we would not be competitive. Our boat was a San Juan 24 that had been modified with an inboard engine and taller rig to bring it up to the Quarter Ton rating. The other boats had all been designed specifically to the IOR rule were significantly faster. However, who would pass up the chance to race to best boats and sailors in this sized boat?
The racing was a combination of short and medium distance bay races plus one overnight race out in the Gulf of Mexico. Time has helped me forget the details of the shorter races in Corpus Bay.
Our best race in the Bay came on a longer course. As usual, our lack of speed put us behind the pack at the last windward mark. As we approached, we watched the boats round the mark, gybe and head West on a unreasonably tight reach. I was serving as navigator and read the racing instructions multiple times. I was convinced the next mark was basically downwind and the other boats were close to 60 degrees off course. There was obviously no reason for us to follow the pack, so we set our chute and headed off downwind. It also helped that the only angle we were even close on speed was dead downwind. We were the only boat going toward what I thought was the next mark. One by one the other boats started gybing and coming our way. We probably sailed over a mile shorter course than the leaders. We didn’t win, but we managed to finish in the top quarter.
After the race we heard from the guys on Magic Bus (eventual winner from New Zealand) that they were incredibly lucky. Their boat was designed for heavier winds and was the only fractional rigged boat in the fleet. They were fast to windward or on a reach, but the lack of the mast head spinnaker and smaller sail plan made them slow on a dead run. When they got to the windward mark, they knew they would have a problem going downwind and would have to sail super tight angles and gamble on which side of the course would pay. They literally flipped a coin and headed off on port gybe. They were leading the regatta at the time, and one after the other, the boats came around and just followed Magic Bus. The longer the boats followed Magic Bus, the less Magic Bus would lose on the run. As a result, Magic Bus was able to salvage a decent finish when they should have been in the bottom half of the fleet.
The last race was the most memorable. They gave us a course close to 100 miles, and we headed off late in the afternoon. The sun was setting as we cleared the break water at Port Aransas and headed out into the Gulf of Mexico. It was one of those beautiful nights with warm temperatures and a steady breeze. Around 11 pm we were sailing downwind with the chute set. I was steering and one of the other crew was facing backwards and enjoying the night. Suddenly, he asked me what a distress flare looked like. I was curious what would trigger that question and was worried I already knew the answer. It seems he had seen two red flares. Next, he said “there’s another one!”. I turned around just in time to see it fade out. We quickly woke up the rest of the crew, dropped the chute, and headed back to were we had seen the flares.
We didn’t see any more flares, but before long we started seeing the steady flash of a man over board light. You can’t accurately judge distance to a light, but we felt we were within one mile. By this time it was obvious the light was not floating in the water, but was above the deck of a boat. Then the light stopped. The combination of three red flares and a man over board light were the total of night time signally requirements for the boats in our race, so we were concerned it was one of our fellow competitors that was in trouble. We sailed around for maybe 30 minutes in the blackest night I have ever seen. We then decided our best course of action was to go back into Port Aransas and notify the Coast Guard of what we’d seen. (Yea, I know it seems odd that we didn’t have a radio, but that was 1976.)
The Coast Guard Station is just inside the jetty at Port Aransas and we got there around 3 or 4 am. We made our report to the officer on duty. It became obvious he was not taking us seriously. We kept telling us there was a group of shrimp boats out there and they were probably just signally each other. We told him we had seen the Shrimp boats, and that was not the source of the signals. We were getting frustrated for not being taken seriously. Then the Base Commander came into the office. He asked the Duty Officer what the situation was. Then he asked us why we thought there was a boat in distress. We explained that the boats in our fleet had exactly the tools we had seen, and many of them did not have offshore experience. The Base Commander then turned to the Duty Officer and asked him if the Cutter was being made ready for sea. When the Duty Officer replied that he had not seen the need yet, the body language of the Base Commander changed. He turned to us and said that he was now in charge and would have a search begin ASAP. He then thanked us for our help. Nothing more was said, but I’m glad I was not that Duty Officer.
The story had a happy ending. It was indeed one of the sailboats that was in distress. Their rudder broke off. They didn’t want to bother any of the other racers and had also seen the shrimpers, so they waited until we were several miles downwind. Of course, the shrimpers were most likely asleep. When no one showed up, they took the light out of their rigging and started thinking about helping themselves. The waves were maybe 4 feet, and with no rudder their boat was bouncing around wildly. However, they were able to get the outboard motor out from below and mounted on their transom. Then one of their crew hung off the transom and used the running motor to steer the boat back to Port Aransas. They ran out of gas and were just able to coast up to the Coasts Guard dock as we were leaving. Everything came out fine except for one poor Coast Guard sailor that I’m pretty sure got a painful lesson in the purpose of the Coast Guard.
Our failed attempt at a rescue and the trip to the Coast Guard Station wasn’t all the excitement in the last race. The ship channel at Port Aransas has a jetty on each side that extends roughly a quarter mile into the Gulf. The finish line for the race was just off the Coast Guard Station, so the boats had to sail about a half mile inside the jetties. As they got there, the tide was in full ebb at around 4 knots. The first boat back was Magic Bus. The second boat was Business Machine out of Dallas Texas. With the standings, whichever boat got to the finish first would win the Championship. The wind was coming across the jetties, so Magic Bus chose to go to the leeward side of the channel in hopes of having more wind. Of course, this meant Business Machine chose the windward side. Both boats were staying as close to the jetties as possible to avoid the current in the middle of the channel. It wasn’t long before it became obvious Business Machine had less current and was gaining. The boys from New Zealand did the math and realized they were going to lose, so they had to cross the channel to get in front of Business Machine. In the middle of the channel, Magic Bus was actually moving backwards. They made it across and were less than 5 boat lengths in front of Business Machine. From there they just stayed in front and won.
Winning the Worlds was very fortunate for the boys from New Zealand. They had been talking to several people all week about selling their boat, and the first place trophy definitely raised the price. This was good. It seems they were completely dead broke and needed a good price on the boat to pay their hotel bills and buy tickets back to New Zealand. That was my first introduction to Kiwis and their love of life.