A first hand account from Around Long Island Race 2009 – “Why, oh Why?”

Here is an account from a sailing buddy who took part in the ALIR on a boat he had never crewed on before. To protect the innocent, I will keep the boat name anonymous. My friend had some big questions  about the experience:

The first time I saw the boat, my first response was why am I going offshore in a boat that looks like it won't make it around the corner let alone make it around long island (why)? Why am I in an all new crew with a person who has raced the ALR six times (why)? Why is there a rookie dressed in shorts and tee shirt in a rainy weather and who has never left the bay? Well we headed for start and the weather went from worse to worse real fast. We were about 3 hours early for the start in six foot swells (why again?).The rookie got sick and cold before the start (why). Why didn't he dress for the weather and take his motion sickness tablets? No one told him.

Anyway, the start time came around and it was delay for a next hour because boats  were still trying to make the start line (why?). The start of the race finally came and we started in 23 knots+ wind and that was the last time we saw #23 (why?). It went from 23 to 35 by dinner, which by the way was peanut better and jelly on white bread so now you see why it's an all new crew. At about 9:00pm the wind  was in the 40's and we were healing more than 40 degrees because we didn't have a storm jib up (why?) and couldn't make our way forward to put one up. Because the tropical storm was picking up steam, we started to take on water real bad! With another crew member, we emptied the boat with a bucket. The rookie got worse so the Capt decided he had enough and turned back home looking like a kid who never did his homework. The moral of the story is if you have to ask too many whys, why even bother to go?