Conference unifix::sailing

very unfunny

    
    re:-.1,  I disagree. 

    I thought it was funny (but I used to love MAD and National Lampoon
    so what do I know).
    
    Walt

    Whats funny? I thought this was a true story ... after all, I for
    one have Ralph-ed overboard.
                   

    This is not up to Barry standards. :-(
    
    

    Hmm.
    
    
    A new crew management technique. Next time my daughter acks up when
    we're underway I'll start calling her Ralph!
    
    bc

    
    
    
    
    
    
                       "Here's looking at you, squid."
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    
    Note: If you look at the newest issue of Sailing magazine, there is a 
    picture of Dave and "crew"
    
    
    
           <<< HYDRA::DISK_NOTES$LIBRARY:[000000]DAVE_BARRY.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -<  Dave Barry - Noted humorist  >-
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Note 877.0              Cast adrift in a most tacky sport                1 reply
MTCLAY::DONOVAN "L.J.Donovan, DTN 267-2243"         100 lines  29-JUN-1994 13:07
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                   "Cast adrift in a most tacky sport"

                   (Yacht racing not for just anyone)

                             by Dave Barry

    [Copied from the (Concord, NH) Sunday Monitor, June 26, 1994]

I don't wish to boast, but recently I was on the crew of one of the yachts
in the prestigious Whitbread round-the-world yacht race.

     Okay, if you want to get picky, I was not, technically, "on the crew."
A more accurate statement is that I was "constantly in the way of the crew."
But I WAS on the yacht, and it was an experience that will remain with me
for the rest of my life in the form of chronic butt soreness, caused by 
"tacking."  (More on this later.)

     For the benefit of those of you who do not keep up with international
yacht racing, I should explain that the Whitbread is a grueling nine-month
race in which hardy yachtspersons sail around the world, relying only
upon their skill, the wind, and humongous sums of money from corporate
sponsers.  One of these sponsors, a major beer manufacturer, arranged for 
me to be a passenger on one of the yachts; a public-relations person for 
this company expressed the hope that I would mention the beer by name in 
this column, but of course that would violate my journalistic ethics.

     The Whitbread is the world's toughest sailing race.  The 14 yachts
competing this year will travel a total of 32,000 miles, a distance that -
to give you some perspective - is equal to 253,440,000 Heineken bottles
placed end-to-end.  The 10-person crews race under brutal conditions: at 
sea for weeks at a time, sometimes battling 50-foot waves, constantly cold
and wet, rarely getting more than a few hours' sleep, jammed together 
aboard Spartan racing boats that lack even primitive casino facilities.

     Please note that I, personally, did not sail around the entire world.
I sailed in an exhibition race off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, where 
the competitors had stopped to prepare for the final leg of the Whitbread,
across the Atlantic to England.  The yacht I was on is the Yamaha, named
after its Japanese corporate sponsor, Steinway.

     No, that was a joke, and I sincerely hope that it does not cause some
public-relations person to commit suicide.  The Yamaha is sponsored by 
Yamaha, a company that manufactures fine pianos and outboard motors via
what I assume are two completely different processes.

     Most of the Yamaha's crew members come from New Zealand; they speak
a language that is similar to English, except that the only time you can
understand them is when they say a very bad word that I will represent 
here as "fudge" (not its real name).

     The crew members say this word a lot, and I don't blame them, because
sailboat racing is hard.  The entire boat is covered with a complex 
intertwined mass of nautical items such as winches, pulleys, lines, booms,
halyards, leewards, mizzens, stanchions, forecastles, starboards, 
Heinekens, etc.  In order to make the sailboat do anything, crew members
have to yank on every single one of these items until their hands bleed.
Getting a racing sailboat to turn right requires about the same amount of
labor as building a three-bedroom house.

     And the boat has to turn a LOT.  This is because, in sailboat racing,
you never sail directly toward your intended destination; instead, you
zigzag constantly back and forth, with the boat leaning way over to one
side, then way over to the other, like a person who has consumed too much
Heineken.  This is called "tacking," and it serves an important nautical
purpose; namely, to fling the guest civilian passengers into the ocean
where they would be eaten by squid.

     At least that SEEMED to be the purpose.  There were four of us 
civilians on the Yamaha - Gerry, Lucy, Bob and I.  Oour job was to always
sit on the high side of the boat.  Basically we were human ballast.  So 
when the boat was leaning way over to the left, we'd be clinging for our
lives to the right side, feeling as though we were on the edge of a cliff;
then, suddenly, a voice would shout "Tacking!" and all these New Zealanders
would start pulling on things, and the boat would start leaning sharply 
to the right, and we civilians would try to get over to the left side, 
scrabbling on our butts like pudgy four-legged crabs, wincing and flinching
and trying desperately to avoid flapping sails and big ropes snaking
wildly around the deck and heavy objects whooshing past our heads and 
New Zealanders racing all around us yelling "FUDGE!"

     And of course as soon as we got to the other side, the voice would
shout:  "Tacking!"

     We tacked like maniacs.  I estimate that the Yamaha traveled 237
nautical miles without ever leaving a patch of water the size of a squash
court.  Back and forth, over and over, scrabbled the pudgy flinching 
crabs.  After an hour of this, I knew I was going to need a butt transplant.
But I felt good, because I could sense, from the excited way the New 
Zealanders were talking ("FUDGEFUDGEFUDGE!") that we were doing well.

     "Are we winning?" I asked Bob, between tacks.

     "The race hasn't started yet," he replied.

     So it was a long afternoon out there.  But it was exciting, and we
might - thanks to a strong performance by the ballast - actually have 
won the race.  There was no way to tell.  All I know is, I was very glad
to get back on land and be able to walk erect and try to heal my bruised
and battered body via a time-tested medical remedy.  Involving Heineken.