Sailboat team racing not easy to explain. I’ll try. But helps if you have a lawyer on your team.
We West Texans were new at sailing Snipes, a fifteen-foot sloop, but we challenged the oldest Snipe Fleet One–the Dallas skippers who sailed on White Rock Lake—to a team race. We trailed four boats from Abilene to Dallas and received our comeuppance.
What we learned was that the old-time skippers don’t care if the newcomers have a boat that finishes first. The experienced Dallas skippers knew you can win in point totals if you keep the other three boats ‘covered’ and force your competitors by right-of-way rules into fourth, sixth, and eighth place.
Our rancher, Joe Antilley and crew, got the first-to-finish free pass. I was boxed out in fourth. Lawyer John Crutchfield was in sixth. Geologist Frank Conselman and son were a mark behind, sailing slowly. Abilene was losing big.
The two Dallas skippers ahead of me, more accustomed to racing against each other, were yelling at each other, calling for room to round the mark. I saw Austin Young reach his hand across and push off his teammate’s boat, a disqualifying foul.
Lawyer Crutchfield also saw the violation and yelled, “You fouled, Austin Young!”
And from the other side of the lake, so far away you would question one’s eyesight, we faintly heard Geologist Conselman. “That’s right John, I saw it all.”
Abilene won the first of three team races because of the disqualification. But we used the excuse that a storm was coming, loaded our trailers and started driving toward El Paso. Figured it was time to get out of ‘Big D.’
Photo credit: Snipe Class
