Spontaneous Samaná Regatta, Day 2
It was a sunny Sunday morning in Samana. I was up as usual around 7am, and dicked around on my phone for an hour or two while the rest of the marina slowly stirred to life after a free-booze party the night before. It was the second day of the Abordo Regatta, and I was sailing again on Talaria with Galina and Roman. After our third-place finish in the previous day’s race, I had high hopes for another good result from the boat, especially now that the crew had a bit of race experience under their belts.
I bumped into Galina in the lobby.
“Roman is fucking hungover,” she told me, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. Galina is tiny and cute, with a short, jaunty haircut and the traces of laugh lines showing in the tan around her eyes. In spite of this, she exuded a seething fury that made me happy I wasn’t Roman. Plus, y’know, his hangover.
I cracked some joke to change the subject and we chatted a bit about the races of the day. As opposed to Saturday’s, Sunday’s race-or-races (we had no idea – Spanish rules) were set to be short, windward-leeward legs that would test our boat-handling and tactics rather than the pure speed of the lengthy race the previous day.
Roman wasn’t too worse for wear, although Galina had told me a story about trying to put in him the shower the night before when he couldn’t stand up on his own. I was impressed with his pluck. After a night like that I’d be curled up in my bunk till 4pm.
We prepped the boat and headed out to the course, which was set just offshore of a fancy waterfront pool and bar. There were a few more boats on the field than the previous day, which I knew would mean more traffic at the marks while we tried to make our turns. I reminded Galina of the most important right-of-way rules while turning in a pack of boats, but also told her not to worry about it and to sail the boat as safe as she liked – no one wants to crash their house for a fun-run regatta.
Talaria made a great start as the horn went and we leapt ahead of all but Shiraz, who was clearly the home favourite. The winds were light and the committee had set the race for maybe a mile and half each way, so we tacked upwind sticking close to Shiraz’s lines.
Galina revelled in yelling “STARBOARD!” at oncoming boats while we approached the mark, forcing other skippers to turn away and duck behind Talaria. She had a huge smile plastered across her face and laughed to herself as sea spray drifted through the cockpit.
“I fucking love this!” she said, beaming.
“I have a fucking headache,” Roman said, not beaming.
We rounded the mark without much traffic, and turned downwind. Roman and I fumbled, again, with the whisker pole to hold out the jib, making marginal improvements on our time from the previous day. Like Saturday, two boats were in front of us as we cruised downwind.
“They’re not rounding the leeward mark,” Roman pointed out. The lead boats just drifted over the finish line and dropped their jibs.
“Fucking Spanish rules,” I muttered under my breath, knowing I should have had David help clarify the rules for the day before we hit the water. My bad.
We sailed across the line in third place. The race had taken about half an hour, and the time was 11:30am.
“That can’t be it.”
We looked around at the other boats. One big Beneteau was far off the course, its crew sipping cocktails from plastic cups. The rest, though, were hovering near the start – it was obvious there would be another race soon.
“Stick close to the start with the local boats,” I told Galina as she manoeuvred Talaria around behind the line.
The second race started with a bit more traffic on the line as the skippers grew more aggressive while jockeying for position. A small boat barged in on us from above the committee boat – we weren’t obliged to give them room, but Galina turned her floating home away from the oncoming disaster and from there we got stuck behind a pack of starboard boats. It wasn’t a terrible position, but it was not great. The move cost us some distance and we crossed the line almost a minute after the horn had blown.
We were forced to hold our spot in the busy pack of boats, surrounded on both sides by hulls that we probably couldn’t sail through. We followed as the windward boats started peeling off onto a port tack, laying high of their lines to keep clean air. Talaria showed her racing pedigree and out-pointed most of the leading boats, making up distance toward the mark while not losing much speed.
There was more traffic at the mark than the previous race, and I talked Galina through the various rights-of-way that would affect us as we approached the turn. She stayed calm despite the press of boats coming from two directions, and laughed happily as she forced other skippers to turn before they wanted to. Roman clapped her on the shoulder after one particularly stoic show of willpower, congratulating her resolve.
As we rounded the mark and I brought the boom across, Roman jumped up to the foredeck and had the whisker pole almost in place before I could join him. I helped clamp it onto the mast and we were back in the cockpit in less than half the time it had taken our previous attempts.
“I think I’m finally re-hydrating,” he laughed, taking a gulp of water.
This race had two legs instead of just one, so we had another chance to go up and down the field again before finishing. As the race continued, the boats spread out due to their various speeds, and the tension eased in the turns.
Despite a solid showing by Talaria and good handling by Galina, we finished in fourth, letting a similar-sized boat, Brigadoon, squeeze ahead of us. They had rigged a massive 150% jib for the day (Talaria was running with a 110%) and I was impressed that we had beat her in the earlier race. If the race committee was doing their job, the other boat’s handicap would be seriously affected by the sail change so it didn’t necessarily mean they’d be ahead of us in the results.
We were all starting to tire from the constant labour involved in short-legged racing. The wind had picked up and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so we were doing a lot of work in the heat. I was sweating like a pig.
“Is that it?” Roman asked.
The committee boat still had its flags up, and no one was going home, so I shook my head.
The third race did not start well at all. Tempers were short across the field and we could hear skippers yelling angrily at each other as boats zig-zagged behind the start line. One of the Navy boats nearly crashed into us as they approached the line on a port tack, only veering away at the last second to settle three feet to leeward of us. It didn’t look like an intentional manoeuvre and I made note of the name, Terral, so I could watch out for them on the course. We ended up near the back of the pack, surrounded by smaller boats, and were stuck for a few minutes before we could tack away into clear air.
Soon after the start we found ourselves with the massive Beneteau sitting directly in our lee, with three other boats coming across us on a starboard tack. The Beneteau blocked us from tacking, and I was going to tell Galina that we’d have to duck all of the oncoming boats, when at the last second the bigger boat got out of our way.
“Tacking!” Galina yelled, realizing she had room to get into position before being forced to go off-course due to rights-of-way. We hauled the sails over and squeezed between the Beneteau and one of the oncoming lead boats, in a very solid display of driving by Galina.
A barrage of angry screaming came at us from the stern and a little boat raced past us on the leeward side as we settled onto our new course. They had been in the pack of oncoming boats, but must have thought we’d duck instead of tacking, and had moved downwind to force us around them. Their positioning backfired when we tacked and they had to dodge Talaria’s stern to squeeze within feet of two boats on either side. The skipper was yelling at Galina, who stared ahead, clearly unsure what to do.
“It’s ok, they’re just angry you got in front of them,” I told her. I wasn’t entirely sure we hadn’t cut them off, but it had been a hairy position with boats coming in from all sides, and Galina had made the safest choice she could see at the time. With only three bodies on our boat, we had no one to specifically watch every other boat as our hands were busy with the chores of tacking. I knew a race committee would be hard-pressed to decide if we had tacked too close in front of them or of they had dropped their position to block us and been caught offside by their own manoeuvre.
The race unfortunately continued in this vein for another forty minutes. Terral nearly fouled us again at one turn, then we cut them off badly on a downwind leg (while they were still coming upwind) and we had to do a 360 degree turn to avoid crashing into them. Galina was stressed but kept her cool, and Roman was silent, as racing lost some of its lustre. Three times in one race and they had nearly crashed their house.
Terral caught up with us on the last downwind leg despite their shorter waterline. They weren’t smiling or waving at us anymore. Taking some of our wind from behind, the dark-hulled boat pulled alongside before Talaria’s sails could fill again, giving back our speed. The two boats raced neck-and-neck for almost a mile downwind, as I fidgeted with the sails to try to gain some speed. I was impressed with Terral’s crew, who were making their smaller boat scream through the water.
As the finish line approached, I scrambled up to the bow and lay under the sail to watch who would cross the line first. They were going to win on adjusted time, but I knew Galina and Roman would want to beat them to the horn for a moral victory, if nothing else. No more than six feet of dark blue water separated the boats from each other, Terral’s boom extending almost out over our life-lines.
Talaria inched ahead almost imperceptibly during the last, tense, five minutes, and our bow cleared the finish line half a second before theirs. I let out a whoop and ran back to high-five Galina and Roman. They smiled weakly, both exhausted and stressed out. We were in 7th place, even before adjusting for time, and the race had been hell on the couple.
We dropped the jib and made room at the finish, no one saying much. I realized there was going to be a fourth race, and pointed it out.
“Nah dude,” Roman sighed, “I think we’re done. It’s not fun anymore.”
Galina smiled at him. “If it ain’t fun, why do it,” she said, supportively.
I had no inclination to argue – we’d had an awesome, if sometimes stressful, day of racing, and were all exhausted, sweaty, bleeding, and in desperate need of a beer. We put away the sails and motored Talaria back to the marina. The decision made, Galina and Roman came out of their funk and began to chatter about how much they had enjoyed the experience of racing. That weekend had marked one of the few opportunities since leaving New York that they’d had to really open Talaria up to sail. I was empathetic, given our slow-going on Gaia, and was happy to see the love of the sport seep back into them both. They talked again about Talaria’s racing history and were obviously proud to have added their names to the boat’s pedigree.
The awards ceremony for the regatta was that afternoon on the lush grass near the infinity pool. There were lots of prizes across the numerous fields, but Talaria wasn’t called for any of them. I haven’t been able to find the official results, but Brigadoon finished third in our class and I would be surprised if we were much behind them on adjusted time.
Galina and Roman beamed at my congratulations on their unofficial fourth place, while a number of other skippers came by to put in a good word for our efforts.
We toasted Talaria, and Galina promised she’d enter her in the next regatta they came across as they sail south towards the Lesser Antilles.
