Keeping Keys In Pockets, Bottoms Up, etc.,

by Joe Heslin

1995

It was typical fall series weather on October 14,15; the wind was blowing a steady twenty knots and gusting to thirty. The seas were three feet. All one hundred boats in the fleet were flying their number 3 (smallest) jibs. Kevin Daily (of North Saifs) and I were assisting the race committee in setting the pin end of the starting line along with any other duties they might assign. Although it was wild and woolly at the jibe marks, we did not envision rescue missions. The Melges 24's were broaching their way to the reach marks as would be expected. They were wet, but we were comfortable on the chase boat. We did not have to sweat any lines and we were dry, thank you very much. The sight of a fifty footer broaching out of control, however, made me nervous, even from a distance and even though the scene provided some great photos for Kevin's collection.

The main attraction was the new Melges 30. They are 30 footers that weigh less than 4,000 pounds. Two of them entered the "screamer" division. You know the type. They pray for thirty knots to get the boat up on a plane to do fifteen knots of on-the-edge sailing. They got what they prayed for. The first Melges had never even been seen by its owner. He'd had brokered the boat to a friend and his saumaker. At any rate they were having a hell of a sleigh ride on the last downwind leg while planing at sixteen plus knots of boatspeed, when the bulb on the bottom of the carbon fiber keel let go. The boat turned turtle and all aboard (unhurt but sheepish) wound up sitting on the bottom of the boat. Kevin and I were enjoying the windy, foul worded take-downs further down the leg, when the committee boat hailed us to rescue a capsized boat. We spent an hour trying to right the boat with the help of a guy wearing a North sails hat. He told me he worked for North. He spent the entire time in the water cutting away one-day-old Kevlar sails and rigging. As a born again cheapskate, it killed me to watch him butcher those sails. Kevin says that the North hat must have been stolen because North sailmakers never wind up sitting on the bottom of an upside down sailboat ... on the water.  

When the local constabulary (New Rochelle police) arrived on the scene and asked "Who is the owner? Who is the skipper?" No one, especially the guy with the North hat volunteered -something about no papers. The North Sails hat kiddingly said "You want registration or insurance documentation?" The cops had no sense of humor. They knew that at least some of the soaking wet guys had been on the boat. Therefore, someone had to be the owner or skipper and had to have paperwork. The cops wanted the paperwork produced. They wanted scalps. Being a man of stout heart, I offered my dry foul-weather gear as obvious proof of my innocence--every man for himself. These young cops wanted somebody's a-s. The guy with the hat eventually confessed and the cops and everyone else went off to New Rochelle for interrogation.

Sail makers had a very profitable evening that Saturday night. Every boat had shredded rails and broken gear. Kevin went back to his loft that evening and repaired sail to the wee hours. On Sunday there were plenty of borrowed spinnaker poles. 

As Kevin and I motored to the starting line on Sunday morning, we were reminiscing about the previous day's adventures. We noted that whenever a sailor came on board a boat, the first action is to stow all personal gear below, including watch, rings, and wallet. On the previous day with the heavy seas and the risk of a four thousand pound boat sinking, no one on the swamped Melges, not even the guy with the hat, was crazy enough to attempt to go underneath to retrieve personal gear. Thus, when the cops finally cut the crew loose, they had no keys to drive their cars home. So...on Sunday, as we passed the second Melges 30 named Kamikazee we warned the crew to "Keep your keys in your pocket." They laughed heartily.

Twenty minutes later the committee boat hailed us to tend to an overturned Melges 30. We thought it was a joke but went downwind to check it out. There they were, sitting on the bottom of the boat looking at the carbon fiber keel and the spot where the 2,000 pound lead bulb used to be-before the boat turned turtle. It seems that they were practicing some spinnaker work, doing sixteen knots of boatspeed, when the bulb fell off. And-they hadn't kept their keys in their pockets either. The good news was they didn't draw the New Rochelle Robocops-just a couple of astonished Coast Guardsmen.