Up De Pry Boards Mon - Racing a C Class Regatta

Little Farmers Cay - Five F Festival Regatta 02/01/2008 

                Up De Pry Boards Mon = February 2, 2008

 

Well the Five F festival at Little Farmers Cay, had a surprise – on Friday morning I went to the mail boat, when it came in to Farmers Cay hoping that one of my e-mail pleas for butane had been answered.  While there waiting a large distinguished black man asked me if I could sail, and then asked if I could get crew for one of the C Class boats (approx. 18 ft.) for the upcoming regatta.  Well of course I said yes and ran back to get Ray, Scott, and Kevin.  They jumped right on and we raced back to the mail dock (about a mile away) to sign on.  Our boat – Thunderbird was built by one of the distinguished builders of these C Class boats but she had fallen on hard times, and much of the rigging and hardware were in a state of dilapidation. We got her rigged as best we could with Kalvin our Bahamian skipper (who appeared not to know much about sailing, wind direction, or how to rig this boat).  We took her out for a light sail and learned that the two approx. 8 ft. long boards were to be wedged from side to side with the windward side hanging over the rails about 5 ft. as hiking boards.  The call: “Up De Pry Board Mon” would be heard much over the next 30 hours. 

Our first tasks were to learn how to shift the boards quickly and raise the massive Cat rigged sail and steer this unruly boat.   The start of the races was in open water with the anchor set far off the bow at the starting line.  When the gun (or flag) was waved or fired the bowmen pull the anchor as fast as possible and the massive sail is quickly raised so that when it fills the boat has steerage and the race is started.   Our first race we almost did not get off the starting line.  The sail back filled and we were in irons almost until the winning boat crossed the finish line.  It appeared that we did not understand how to partially raise the sail to get the forward momentum of the anchor pull to obtain helm and control the sail.  Our second race an added Bohemian crew member came on as Scott dropped out for this race.  This new skipper was extremely drunk and fought continuously with Kalvin to the point that he made a dramatic show at the starting line screaming obscenities and demanding to be removed from the boat.  He was taken off and then at the start proceeded to tell us what we were doing wrong.  I told him that if he wouldn’t stay on the boat for the race, that he should leave us be and let us sail.  Another tirade followed but he motored away.  Our second race was better than our first but we were still dead last however this time we actually completed the race course.  Ray, Scott, and I talked into the night over Fire in De Hole rum punch about what we need to do and what we needed to learn for the next day’s race.  We were told that there was one more race Saturday morning.  At 9:00 am we met Kalvin at the boat as he was finishing changing out the massive sail from Friday (which was covered with mud paw prints) with a smaller sail, so we took her for a test sail.  Truthfully, we were able to sail her much better until the tiller broke at the stem and I had to whittle the other end so that we could continue sailing.  The third race started at about 10:30am and we started perfectly off the line and we were right in the pack at the start.  However we could not point her as high as the other boats so we continue to loose position quickly (later we found that there was 1700 pounds of lead bars in below the floor boards).  Ray and Kevin were perfect on the boards, with Scott on the sheet and me at the helm.  Kalvin worked the sail at the mast.  We still came in last but only by a matter of seconds, and the 14^th boat was so desperate to beat us that they hit the last mark and actually loss to us by a technicality.  We were flush with our success.  We worked well together and really sailed the boat.  The reverend (owner of boat) asked us to fly to Nassau in 2 weeks to race his boat again.  The real question was: “Why couldn’t he get local crew for this boat”?  Hmmmm????

We learned that there was a 4^th race and now Kevin dropped out, and the reverend put as second skipper, an expert that was so drunk that he actually fell into the boat getting on.  He and Kalvin cursed each other continuously, as we headed to the start.  Now there were 2 Bohemians shouting different orders and the boat was again completely dysfunctional.  The “Drunk” took the sheet and proceeded to jibe as we were headed on the down wind leg almost decapitating three of us.  We didn’t finish the race and it was truly ugly and distasteful.  But, we had gotten to do what few cruisers have done.  We had the chance to race in a C Class Bohamian regatta 4 times and even perform acceptably for one of them.  All dreams of Nassau were gone, but we still had the thrill of the third race.  I asked a local what would have happened if we had actually beaten one of the locally crewed boats.  He promptly told me that “you would be OK Mon they had armed guards that would have protected us”.