Molly White - Hot Food, Cold Whales and Kaos

Kaos may have had limitations on the amount of gear on board, but we always ate and drank well. There was plenty of coffee and hot cocoa with Dave’s homemade marshmallows and a bottle of bubbly stowed to celebrate our finish. There was a hot meal and usually a second dinner around 2am, which consisted of pizza bites and other oven apps. Morning was met with bagels and lox or a yummy quiche. There is nothing better when you are cold in the dead of night than something warm in your belly.

When the moon sets and it gets really dark, all you can see is the phosphorescence in the bow wake. You are on your own island surrounded by nothing but blackness. I remember at one point, being on the foredeck switching over the genoa to hoist, when I heard something in the water. My friend Kelly, who was at the mast getting ready to jump the halyard yelled, “Oh my god! It’s a whale and it’s going to eat you!” I was sprayed with water as it crossed the bow and sprinted to the mast immediately. The back of the boat was unaware of what had surpassed until the whale passed again on the port side. This has become one of the stories we fondly tell of Monhegans past.

Kaos sailed and won many iterations of the Monhegan and more recently Seguin courses. As I said, we saw conditions with no wind where all you could hear was the incessant crinkle of a limp chute to huge gusts as we played the vang to stay on our feet, and multiple sail changes from Portland Headlight to Cape Porpoise. The one thing about a distance race like the Monhegan, you get all types of conditions. It is an exercise in patience, perseverance, and teamwork.