The 2007 Port Aransas Race: a difficulty

The White Pepper was ready for her first serious race in nearly 10 months, unfortunately her skipper was not equally ready. We had a great crew: Kellie, Chris, Jan, Rudi, Danny Lyberger, Skeeter, Steve, Janet Freeman from Austin, John Hornung, Danny Adams--my best med school buddy, Krystal Lite from Dallas, and at the last minute up walks Trent McBride. Actually we were over the crew limits.

The wind was 20+ knots from the east. I called for the "beast"--the carbon fiber 150% and a reefed main. After a perfect start we had every boat in the fleet for about 30 minutes. Then great problems! I fouled a boat and had to do a 360 turn. Later I over stood the weather mark because I could not believe how high the beast could point the boat. By the time we got into the Corpus Christi ship channel it was hopeless. Also the wind was dead down the channel. We could have tacked the 150% sixty times and gone from dead last to last. Considering the fragility of carbon fiber I estimate each tack would take $50. to $100 out of the sail. I fired up the engine and motored the rest of the way to Port A.

I guess we won the party, but there was little competition. We had to leave Shortie's after John Horning upset one of the patrons. Hotel White Pepper slept about seven of the crew. Jan said the snoring was bad.

The Ladies Race was an equal disaster. We were late for the start and took forever to set the chute. Inexperience really showed. The race home was very fast. We were in the high 7's in the channel and then in the 8's in the bay as the wind came around to the beam. At the jibe mark I did not have the nerve to organize a screaming dangerous heavy air gybe as it was blowing about 25 by this time and we were again dead last. We finished under plain sail. The CC Boat Show was finishing up and two helicopters were flying around at very low altitude filming advertisements. I am sure the White Pepper will show up on cable TV as background soon.
Again we had a good party, but I did not even bother to check the race results.

The Port Aransas Race is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago, but still I would have wanted to do better. The way forward is practice and drill. Some of the newer crew said they would be game to go out on weekends. Hopefully, we can organize something.