Wicked Good Sailing- Forrest Williams on Sailing J/111s @ Key West

(Key West, FL)- “Three times in the last 14 years, I have missed sailing on Friday at Key West Race Week. Twice has been for the good reason: we had an insurmountable lead and didn’t have to sail the last race (I know this will open a can of worms about whether it’s a lame move, which disrespects your opponents, or shows them enough respect that you aren’t interfering with the battle for second).

Whatever.  That’s why restaurants have menus.

Today, on the other hand, I caught an early flight out of town to meet my family, already skiing in Vermont. I had a fairly unrealistic flight out to begin with (3 p.m.), but a meticulous plan to make it happen.

The generous lads on Spaceman Spiff had their Protector teed up to snatch me off the J/111 WICKED 2.0 as we crossed the line and run me up to the airport for a beach landing, which would have been epic (not Jerry Kirby jumping off the Newport Bridge epic, but pretty cool nonetheless). After taking a hard look at our lot on Thursday evening, and with the full knowledge that Marlow Ropes’ Paul Honess was in town and a free agent, I approached crew boss Gary LeDuc with plan B and he gave it the OK.

The team took the news as an opportunity to mix up crew roles on Friday in an attempt to change individual perspectives. Rodney Johnstone moved to mainsheet, owner Doug Curtiss took the con, Vela Sailing lead singer Rod Favela moved from Frontierland all the way back to Fantasyland to call the plays, and former Oakcliff Acorn Sarah Raigle commandeered the bow. The cockpit/pit/mast area was handled by LeDuc, Honess, fire enthusiast Tim Greves and mast man John Schnauck.

I got enough texts from the boat throughout the day to know that the musical chairs experiment wasn’t a silver bullet (I don’t think they meant it to be) but accomplished the goal of helping everyone understand what others on the boat had been dealing with on a daily basis throughout the week. One of the enjoyable challenges has been bridging the generation gap before the end of the week, and I will claim victory in that regard. Young Sarah now knows more about Briggs Cunningham than most sailors her age do, and Rod now knows what “making it rain” and “cougar” mean in early 21st century parlance…a true learning experience for all, and seeing the social references find their water level has been fun…best illustrated, perhaps, in our new-meets-old psych-up phrase - “It’s on like Pong”.

It’s been an interesting exercise downloading these thoughts each day. I hope I conveyed that this is a special regatta, a special place to sail, and you’re guaranteed to make memories outside of what the scoreline says that will last a long time. One last thing I would’ve missed if I stayed home and worked all week: when I showed up at the boat this morning, Gary was teaching Rod Favela, who speaks with a beautiful Venezuelan accent, how to “talk right”…please find something you need for your boat, call Vela Sailing to order it, and tell Rod he’s got the sale if he can say “Clahk the Aadvahk drank Cutty Sahk in the pahk with Mahkie Mahk after dahk.” You’ll be glad you did! See you next year and, if you’re towing your boat out of the Conch Republic, remembah to use yah blinkah!”

And here’s another wicked good observation from Forrest:

“Key West Race Week is the ultimate bar karate dojo and the sailors bring it Cobra Kai style all week. Bar karate, for the uninitiated, is the sport in which drunk sailors lie to each other at the post-race watering hole doing animated karate chop motions to illustrate where the boats in the story are positioned (“We were on starboard (CHOP!) and this guy comes out of nowhere on port (CHOP!) so we lee bow him (CHOP!) and send him back to the left (CHOP!) never to be seen again”). Scientists have placed the percentage of bar karate stories that begin with the phrase: “We won the start and were leading the whole fleet up the beat when…” at somewhere between 85 and 90 percent.”

To read more of Forrest William’s amusing commentary while sailing aboard the J/111 WICKED 2.0, please check out the link here:  http://www.sailingworld.com/wicked-good