Working Up a Lather

Lady-at-the-Helm Race, which I refer laconically as LATHeR: So little winds, only about a dozen boats showed up. At the prep signal, the wheel was seized from my grip and I was sent forward to put my beer muscle on the leeward rail. I will not mention the discussions which transpired on board, because what happens on the boat always stays on the boat. I will report what other boats could observe:

• We were over early. In drifting conditions that's the race.
• Our spinnaker pole has been restored!
• Reaching to the 2nd mark, we could not fetch it and so had to temporarily drop the chute.
• Under four knots of wind in a sea, we cannot tack; we were forced to over-stand and gybe.
• At the last (leeward) mark we actually managed to slam dunk another boat.

Whenever the crew mutinies and installs Trophy Wife at the helm, usually in super light conditions, my favorite position going to weather is flat on my back on the leeward rail, slightly abaft of the mast. From there it's a comfortable and productive focus on the electronic wind indicator and jib tell-tales. From this vantage point, I can more clearly and more instantly discern changes in the apparent wind angle than anyone else on board. Of course I am in no position to know, whenever I bellow my observations aft, how they are received; or if indeed, they are received.