Vineyard Race Delivers
And the Mount Gay Origin Story...
With any sailing experience you never really know what you are going to get. It’s mostly up to the Weather Gods. Sometimes—maybe often, depending on where you sail—they are cruel, and heap abuse upon you for even daring to hope for a good time. Too much wind, too little wind, rain, cold, heat. They have a lot of different ways to mess with you. Suffering is part of sailing. And of course, that makes it good for you. It builds character and resilience. As the great racing skipper Carleton Mitchell liked to say, “You eats what the cook serves.”
This stoic attitude has always appealed to me, and is not a bad approach to life in general. Still, it is awfully nice to tuck into a gourmet meal every once in a while. And after a summer of crazy weather and abandonments, the weather gods finally relented and served up a really nice one. I was back on The Rover, a Swan 44 MKII, with my friend Steve and his competent and companionable crew for the annual Vineyard Race. We had decent wind, a tricky and interesting race course, and Chamber Of Commerce weather.
Being on a sailboat, these days especially, is a highly therapeutic escape from the painful ills of today’s polarized and warming world. Your universe shrinks to 44 feet and what you can see between you and the horizon. Your community shrinks to a small group of shipmates, united in the goal of driving a sailboat as fast as it can go over the most favorable course. You sync into tune with the wind, the seas, and the feel of the boat. During this race we had sun, a sliver of a moon, and spectacular night skies. Jupiter blazed like a beacon. Saturn glimmered nearby. Shooting stars regularly scorched across the firmament. Not to be outdone, the mellow sea gods sent us a few dolphins, who jumped off the stern quarter and urged us forward. It is a simple, uncomplicated world, and when you sleep you sleep deep and untroubled.
I’ve been on boats where this alluring alternate reality is marred by a cranky crew, or outsized egos. Managing a sailboat under race pressure, especially if the weather is bad, can be testing and stressful, and getting the crew mix right isn’t easy. But Steve has cultivated a skilled and agreeable team for The Rover. I’ve known him since college, and shared apartments and sea miles with him. He’s a busy orthopedic surgeon, wants to do well, and has the right boat to succeed. But his priority is to enjoy his time on the water. So he has a foundational rule when it comes to recruiting crew, which he succinctly articulated to me just after he bought the boat: “No dicks allowed.” It’s a good screen (for boats and life in general). The Rover team is a happy team.
That makes it easy to focus on the racing and try to deliver a good result. This year the Vineyard Race was mostly reaching and running, so boat-speed was at a premium. The challenge of going as fast as possible was greatly assisted by Navigator Jay, his facility with Expedition routing software, and his vast experience with this particular boat. He sailed it all over the world for years with the previous owner, a friend of Steve’s. And he loves it so much he stayed with the boat when it was sold to Steve so the previous owner could upgrade to a Cookson 50. Jay and the algorithms of Expedition can tell you at any moment how close boat-speed is to 100% of the expected polar for whatever given angle and windspeed you are sailing in. Jay would sometimes stick his head out of the companionway and gently inform the on-deck crew if the boat was at or below 90% of polars. But it wasn’t long before we were all competing to get Jay to announce we were at 100% of polars. That meant a lot of good tweaking and trimming. We did finally get a “99% of polars” from Jay at one point (I will discount the 120% of polars that was declared one time when Jay was asleep). But the battle for 100 meant we are often sitting around 93-95%, which is in reality a pretty good target speed to be sitting on. If we get to where we are racing an entire course at 95%-plus we will likely get some pretty good results.
Apart from boat-speed, there were three key tactical moments in this year’s Vineyard Race, and we nailed two out of the three. The first was the one that in fact nailed us: an unexpected light air bubble that caught us right after the start. We had been expecting a steady 10-12 knots of wind from the northwest, with slightly more pressure close to the Connecticut coast. Instead, high pressure with single-digit windspeeds started creeping across the fleet from behind, and it shackled us. We went through most of our headsail inventory—Heavy 1 genoa, JibTop, A1, and then Code Zero—but we always seemed to be one headsail change behind. The Rover is a heavy boat, so we likely would have suffered anyhow against the many lighter displacement boats in the fleet. But boats that got onto Code 0s early, and went farther inshore, leapfrogged way ahead. By the time we exited Long Island Sound, the three top boats in our class were miles in front.
I quietly feared it had been a mortal blow, but we kept sailing, and Jay kept everyone encouraged with periodic reports that we had gained another tenth of a mile on the next boat ahead of us in our class, called Thin Man. Tenths add up, and at the next key tactical transition, the return to Long Island Sound via Plum Gut, we finally managed to catch Thin Man by tacking close into Plum Island, where we found steady breeze. In contrast, Thin Man headed towards Gardiner’s Island, and got caught by a band of very light wind. That’s the beauty of the sport: stick around long enough and you will have your moment. Our race suddenly got very interesting.
Thin Man is a J99, and we knew we would owe him a lot of time. So as we blasted close-hauled through the swirling tidal ripples of Plum Gut, with Thin Man just a few minutes behind us, we were acutely aware that we had 70 miles to try and pull away. Thus started the third key tactical section of the race: the long port tack drag race to the finish through a nasty short chop created by the westerly wind pushing against the building flood tide. We threw in one short tack toward the Long Island shoreline to make one final headsail change a bit easier, and then tacked back, pointed the bow toward Stamford, pressed the accelerator, and hoped we wouldn’t have to tack again.
The conditions were tricky. The wind was blowing 12-15 knots, and wind against tide produced closely-spaced 2-3 foot waves. Most boats, especially if they have modern flat bow sections, will slam into that sort of sea state and decelerate or come to a near-stop (Moondust is brutal in that sort of sea state). It takes super-fine steering and constant attention to minimize the slamming, and you also have to bear off a few degrees (which adds distance to your track) to keep the boat fully powered up in order to minimize deceleration and maximize re-acceleration. The Rover? The Rover, as it happens, was perfectly built for those conditions. With a powerful sail plan, well-rounded sections, and 14 tons of displacement, The Rover blasted through that chop like a freight train. Almost no slamming. Sheets of water being thrown aside. A beautiful feeling of power and purpose as we surged forward. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Looking behind, I could see the lightly built Thin Man hobby-horsing wickedly and losing distance to leeward. We had a chance.
We finished at 1:30 am Sunday morning, cleaned up the boat and dispersed (I jumped in my car to drive back to Washington, and The Rover turned around to head back to Westbrook). When I arrived home I checked the finishing times and results. From Plum Gut to Stamford The Rover had pulled ahead of Thin Man by an hour and twenty minutes. That was just enough to put us in third place, with a corrected time that nipped Thin Man by a minuscule 1 minute and 23 seconds. Doesn’t get any closer, I thought, texted Steve congratulations, and went to sleep. A few hours later I woke up to the news that Thin Man was now in third. Their wee hours finishing time had been entered incorrectly in the preliminary results. In reality, it turned out, we had finished an hour and eighteen minutes ahead of them. That two minute difference was enough to jump them into third place on corrected time, beating us by an even more minuscule 49 seconds.
Ouch. Well, not really. It was a fantastic race, and we took great pleasure in the conditions and learning how to sail The Rover better and better. We had a great time. Perhaps Steve could have used the (cheesy?) inscribed cheese platter now awarded to Thin Man. But I doubt it. What is most important is that we all walked away with good memories and a desire to get back out there and do it all again—but faster.
Mount Gay Origin Story: Some of the swag being distributed to Vineyard Race crews included the familiar red Mount Gay regatta cap. This past summer in Glandore Don Street told the tale of how Mount Gay rum became a global brand, while the caps became ubiquitous at sailing regattas. Over to you, Don:
When I first arrived in St Thomas in November 1956, the cheapest rum was the so-called Bito rum, 3 year-old St Croix rum sold out of a barrel in Riise’s Liquor store. Bring your own gallon bottle and it was filled for 75 cents.
There were various types of Cruzan rum available by the bottle at a very reasonable price. But what everyone really liked was Mt Gay Eclipse rum in its distinctive bottle with the map of Barbados on the bottle, that is if you could find a store or bar that had it.
I well remember the first time I arrived in St Barts with Iolaire in 1959. I discovered the Carriacou rum smugglers were loading up with Mt. Gay Eclipse rum at $6 US for a case of 12!!!!
The descendants of these rum smugglers now race as a class in the Antigua Classic Regatta. They are the subject of a wonderful award winning 88-minute film: Vanishing Sail.
Mt Gay Eclipse could be found throughout the eastern Caribbean but was extremely difficult to find outside the eastern Caribbean.
In the early 70’s a number of the “big uns” (Ticonderoga, Escapade, Royono and others) were in Newport. The summer charter season had ended, and it was too early to go south. The skippers were getting bored, and the 1974 America’s Cup was on. The late Ken Mc Kenzie said let’s have a race on the Cup lay day. Winner gets a case of Mt Gay, of which there was plenty still in the bilges of the various boats. They had the race, Ken and Ti won, and there was a really good party after the race.
The next year someone did some checking. He discovered 21 Club in New York City was the US agent for Mt Gay. They contacted the agent and talked him into coming to Newport to see the boats, and told him of the race.
Again they had the race after the summer charter season ended, on the lay day of the ‘77 America’s Cup series. The representative from 21 Club arrived with a couple of cases of Mt Gay Eclipse rum. Ti did not win this one, as Bob Tiedman had restored the 12-meter Gleam, which won the case of rum.
As a side note: It has been said that Ken traded smuggled Mt Gay for dockage at Bannisters Wharf. Bannisters Wharf sold it at the Candy Store, which started the Candy Store’s popularity.
After the ‘77 race there was a great party, with legal rum supplied by 21 Club. At the party they told 21 Club about of Antigua Sailing Week, where sailors gathered to race and party before departing to the four corners of the world. The 21 Club representative got to thinking that throwing a party at Antigua Sailing Week would spread the word of Mt Gay Eclipse worldwide.
He contacted Mt Gay Barbados. They liked the idea and threw a Mt Gay party during Antigua Sailing Week on Galleon beach, and gave out the first of the Red Hats. For a number of years, the only way you could obtain a Mt Gay red hat was to sail in Antigua Week. Having a faded Mt.Gay hat showed you were a good long-term sailor. And getting the hats at the party became a bit of a rugger scrum with fisticuffs thrown in.
Mt. Gay started giving parties and red hats at other regattas. One couple had for many years an excellent job. They were employed by Mt Gay to sail from regatta to regatta, set up the Mt. Gay party, and give out the hats.
Mt Gay can now be purchased just about anywhere, all because a few bored charter skippers in the early 1970’s organized an informal race in Newport with the prize being some smuggled Mt Gay rum!!!!!
So there you have it. Don knows everything…
Moment Of Un-Zen:
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