Al Carville - It was a fast start, and a slow race…

It’s the 49 th annual Monhegan Race and a record field of 138 boats are entered

including another Quintessence! If the weather at Friday’s Skipper’s Meeting is any

indication of conditions, it will be a fast race sailed in deep swells. Saturday brings a

bright and clear day with a stiff northerly breeze. The start is off Fort Gorges. The

angle is tight, but it will be a spinnaker start. Our class is first off with 19 boats, and we

follow Abbott Fletcher and Majek over the line. The strong breeze makes for an exciting

and colorful start as the ship channel is soon filled with 138 spinnakers. This will be a

fast race with a spinnaker leg to Cape Porpoise…famous last words. At Corwin Rock

the weather conditions change dramatically, and a light southwesterly comes in

accompanied by deep swells. The rounding at Cape Porpoise is tedious and the lack of

wind and deep swells find us in a “no steerage” situation. We finally head out as the

Loran tells us Monhegan is 51 miles and 32 hours away! The duty watch looks for air

(and finds little) and we are only abeam of Halfway Rock at 2300. And, we’re short of

Sequin at 0200. Two and a half miles is the progress in three hours. Monhegan is on

the horizon…far horizon. We eke our way along at 1.25 knots, give or take. We are

amazed to find ourselves among all the “big” boats and finally make 14M and so do

they, over an hour later than we did…such is the wind. The spinnaker goes up but there

is not more than one knot of wind and progress is slim. Our first vote says continue, the

second vote a half hour later at the same location says, “that’s it”. The Coast Guard

Academy boat next to us fired their engine and so did we. With the other boats

disappearing over the horizon thanks to their engines, it is our joint opinion that the

cause is lost. The captain has sailed a “light” boat and with no air and none predicted

for Monday, a call to Christmas Cove confirms that they have diesel. We draw a straight

line in and find we are not the first to do so nor will we be the last. We dropped out at

1530 and we head back out at 1700. We are back at Centerboard Yacht Club at

midnight and can see the outlines of anchored racers waiting for the turn of the tide.

The low tide provides a fitting finish to the race weekend as Quintessence finds herself

aground about six feet from the CYC floats! Yes, we work at it and the incoming tide

finally brings us to the docks. 138 boats started; 54 boats finished. Happy Ours sailed

by Norm Poirier took first in our class and Quintessence second but, it wasn’t our

Quintessence. Most of the elapsed times were in the 36 hour frame. But, to quote crew

member Hugh Smith “isn’t this great!?!?”.