ALMOST SETTLED... and happy too (Part 62f)

From the time I was eleven I was involved in some sort of racing be it sailing, cars or horses. With cars and horses out of the picture it was strictly sailing. When it appeared that week that I wouldn’t be racing on the weekend it was quite a disappointment. The lateness of Paul’s decision did create a bit of last minute scrambling for me though. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say that by the time that Paul and I arrived at the racing venue on Saturday we were late. The reason Frank hadn’t left the part out for me was that he hadn’t been able to find it before he left. He made a concerted effort to locate it when he returned Friday night and brought it with him that morning. My problem with that was that there was no time to make the change before racing started. Luck appeared to be with me in that the wind was light which would mean there wouldn’t be all that much strain on the distressed part. However. the light wind presented a far different problem in that Paul weighed about 35 pounds more than Elle and that extra weight would slow us down.

We managed to get to the starting line just before the race started. Paul was familiar with the type of boat we were racing but all his experience had been as a skipper and not as a crew. We had to work some things out as we raced and that didn’t help our performance either. The questionable part held up and we ended up finishing somewhere in the middle of the fleet. There was a break for lunch and we used the time to make the repair. The wind picked up during the break and by the time we headed for the starting line the usual afternoon Southerly had come in. Now Paul’s weight would come in handy to help hold the boat down and on a fairly level plane.

Having nothing to lose I chose to take what sailboat racers call a ”flyer“ at the start. A ”flyer“ is when a sailor takes an unconventional tack (chance) and sort of ignores what the majority of his competitors are doing. I had a real good knowledge of the local tidal currents and decided to try and take advantage of the incoming tide. As we were jockeying for the start I heard a lot of yelling and saw two boats had collided. I pressed on and took my ”flyer” going off on the opposite side of the course than the majority of the others. It paid off as we got to the first mark of the course in first place. With hard work we held the lead and crossed the finish line first... only we didn’t get the traditional cannon salute that winners usually received.

As we headed for shore I could see one boat still quite a ways back on the race course. What was really strange was that the boat was approaching the finish line from a different direction than I and the other boats right behind me had come from. I dismissed it as Paul and I celebrated sailed for the shore. Once there we received congratulations from some of the other sailors whose boats were launched from the beach. As all the local sailors launched their boats from the club marina I didn’t see any of them as we took the sails off and got ready to head back home. As we did we could hear and see some sort of commotion out on the beach in front of the clubhouse and dock. Curious, we walked towards it and I could see one of the local sailors (Peter) chasing one of the twins. She was wearing a white dress and not in sailing clothes. I wondered about that as I had seen both the girls earlier as we sailed out for the start.

After running around in circles while on the beach Peter trapped what turned out to be Pam on the dock. She had no where to run but out to the end. The dock was about 150 feet with a “T ” at the end. Peter caught her and it seemed like he picked her up like she was a feather. He walked to the edge of the dock with Pam on his shoulder and then he jumped in still holding her on his shoulder. It was pretty funny. When they came to the surface it was shallow enough for Peter to stand. Pam, on the other hand, had her dress up around her face and it was obvious she was in some difficulty. Peter was over six feet tall and Pam was no more than 5’ 4“ so there was no way for her to touch the bottom. Peter swam over to her and we all watched as he helped her pull her dress off over her head. Then she started swimming for shore as Peter walked in with the dress. By the time they started in more of the local sailors had made there way over from the marina. Steve, another local that I was friendly with had the ”scoop“ as to what this had been all about.

Peter and the twins had a long history of practical jokes that they played on each other. On this day Peter had reversed the lines that are used to hoist the sails up on the mast on the twin’s boat. With the way the locals launched their boats in the marina, doing this made for quite a hassle for the girls. I had mentioned that I had thought that two boats had collided prior to the start. One of them belonged to the twins and the boat had been damaged to the point that they couldn’t race it. When they hoisted it out of the water back at the marina they saw Peter’s boat trailer. They decided to hide it so that when he hauled it out he wouldn’t have a place to put it. Peter knew it had been the girls but the only one he saw was Pam. Pam had gone home and had changed for a party she was attending that night but had come back to the club to see the results and, unfortunately for her, Peter saw her.

As Pam approached the shore someone had gotten a beach towel to give her when she walked out of the water. But it was fairly shallow and she had to walk about 10 to 12 feet to get it. She was in just her bra and panties... and I was right in position to see her. She was wearing nylon panties and when nylon gets wet it becomes almost transparent. Mmmmm! There had to be at least 30 people there as she emerged from the water and she received a big cheer as she did. For me it was another good memory.

To be continued...