The annual Whaler's Race, nm late in the sea- son by the Sheldrake Yacht Club, is unique in that at the starting gun all vessels must be at anchor, all sails must be down, and all halyards off.

The crew of sailin Shoes had been introduced to this by Mary and Jim Dominique of Glory. We had nailed a third place trophy in 1989 and fully expected to do better in 1990.

Fully ? Maybe the word is fooly. Or is it folly? Let's sail on. Properly competing requires a larger than normal crew because of the many functions taking place at once after the gun. We started out to the starting line from Little Neck Bay with Glory. and arrived at Can I off Execution Rock early - unusual for us. Also, for a change, we did not run out of fuel on the way there.

The starting line was close to the north shore of the Sound and the direction to the first mark was south and the wind was from the north, which indicated to us a spinnaker reach south at the start. We thought we were quite smart in anchoring stem to with the bow of the boat heading in the direction of the first mark. All we would have to do is haul in the anchor off the stem while the crew was raising the spinnaker. At the starting gun we had our fastest crew on the halyards and the strongest on the anchor.

Great in theory. Matt Grabowsky our foredeck man was too fast for our guest "deck ape" whom we shall call John Doe for reasons that will become evident to the reader at the conclusion. Of course, I had purchased the best Danforth anchor money could buy, guaranteed to hold Sailin Shoes in a fifty-knot gale. The spinnaker filled in the fifteen- knot breeze and was mightily fighting the Danforth in an epic struggle. Nothing gave. The rest of the fieet had solved their problems and were off and running to the first mark while our friend the deck ape had attempted to leisurely pull in the anchor line. When the rest of the crew started screaming at him, he picked up his work pace. Too late. Sailin Shoes was sailin'. The rest of the rocket scientists valiantly tried to pull on the anchor line, to no avail. Throwing caution and two hundred dollars worth of ground tackle to the winds, the captain of Sailin Shoes did what he had to do and cut the anchor line. When that last strand let go, the line snapped into the water with a hiss and the vessel lunged forward with a vengeance.

We had spotted the rest of the fleet about a quarter of a mile. Rounding the first mark in the middle of the fleet, we lost the spinnaker halyard up the mast. No great loss, since we had two others. The only other loss was to Greg Wuest who heaved breakfast and lunch over the side of the boat as he went up the bosun's chair to retrieve the halyard.

We finished in the middle of the fleet, our only consolation being that we beat China Doll.  

To Matt and Kenny, we will never try that trick again.

To Jo-Ann Heslin, it was just a small, cheap anchor.

To John Doe, Dear John .....