Animism

The wind was from the east and the RC made the first mark, T1. We had a poorish start; slightly shadowed by Balance, but not a big deal. My thought was to head towards the island. At NYC, local knowledge says that with an east wind you should head towards the island; to take advantage of the inshore lift. I didn't notice any advantage, perhaps because we were too far west. We stayed further out, and our course gave us a more direct line to the mark. The wind was strong but it was shifty. South of Centre Island, Balance crossed us, and headed further south. Most of the fleet over-stood; perhaps it was because of the wind's oscillations and skippers were worried about getting a knock close to the mark. I also over-stood but not nearly as much. I stayed on a close hauled course in order to have a bit of insurance against a knock. It paid off. We easily made the mark; Balance had over-stood by too much and was now behind.

Animism is a religion which includes the belief that objects have souls. There are times when I wonder about the validity of such a world view. One such time was our attempt to hoist the spinnaker after rounding T1. Everything went SNAFU. Halyards and the topping lift swung with wild abandon. Spinnaker poles had to be wrestled into submission. Clearly this could only be explained by evil spirits who had taken control of these objects and directed them to rebel against humanity! Needless to say, it took us awhile to get things sorted. The only solace was that our call on the layline had given us enough of a lead to deal with the evil spirits, or whatever, that were preventing us from getting the chute up and under control.

The next leg was a very long downwind run to Mark 1. Balance was to the south and slowly gained. They were sailing on a hotter angle. Neither of us could make the mark without gybing. Balance decided to douse the chute, and gybe to the mark with their genoa. We opted to gybe and do a windward takedown at the mark. This paid off; we had gained but could not take the lead.

There was a short beam reach to the finish. We beat Balance on corrected time, in spite of a brief revival of animism and its evil gremlins.