Crewing in Conquistador's Cup Regatta

This weekend I helped "crew" a friend's 7.9 meter S2 sailboat in the Conquistador's Cup Regatta in Charlotte Harbor, Florida. Charlotte Harbor is a large, open estuary in the next county up from the one I live in. 

I was by far the least experienced of the five member crew- I sailed tiny "Laser" dinghies in day camp as a kid, and I've obviously windsurfed a lot, but multi-person sailboats are much more complicated. Since I didn't know how to do much, I did the simple jobs like sitting on the upwind rail of the boat to keep it from leaning over too far. (Inexperienced crew members are referred to as "rail meat.") The trickiest thing they let me help with was deploying and retrieving the parachute-like "spinnaker" sail that is used when sailing downwind. 

All the sail changes and maneuvers we did seemed fast, complicated, and intense, especially when there were other boats nearby, and especially in the ~20 knot winds and big chop on the second day of the regatta. 

The boat's speeds (6.3 knots average, 9.5 knots maximum in the last race) are pretty slow compared to a windsurf or kiteboard, but you can sail at steep angles to the wind and do a lot of technical, tactical, teamwork stuff that makes it interesting. A sailboat is kind of like a house that you can race. Also, you can't have five people and a bunch of cookies, sandwiches, and drinks on a windsurf, so there's that. 

Anyway, I felt really lucky to get to do something completely out of my normal with a great group of people this weekend, and I would HIGHLY recommend that anyone who is kind of aquatically and socially oriented give this a try. Sailboat owners seem to always be looking for crew.  

Getting read to race.

Captain Jason (center) and crew at the awards banquet. 

Jason's boat "Echo Shmeco" at the dock in Punta Gorda where we set out from.

Trying to stay ahead of "Greggarious" when going downwind. The colorful sail is the spinnaker. It looks mellow but deploying and managing the spinnaker in strong wind was scary. 

This is "Greggarious" another boat of the same exact type that we raced in the regatta. I think the blackish sails are cool looking. 

That's my knee in pants and another crew member being "rail meat" while we try to stay ahead of the other S2 7.9 sailboat that was our closest competitor in the regatta. They beat us on day 1 but we beat them on day 2.