Loyalty

It goes both ways

This weekend had a lot to do with the usual regatta stuff, and it also had some stuff to do with the repairs to the console of Black Magic. We did some repairs; they held at least temporarily. We raced, and we didn’t do so badly, in spite of some efforts by Zorro and Dino (most especially Dino) to compromise our sleep and other creature comforts. If I get time, maybe I can get into details, but right now, there are more important things to think about.

Saturday morning before the racing, we got a phone call from Cornhusker. She had received some bad news the day before, and she was emotionally distressed. She wasn’t sure that she was up to coming on board to race with us, and she was considering sailing on one of the B fleet boats where she wouldn’t have to deal with as much stress.

I assured her that we still wanted her on Black Magic. The weather prediction was for light conditions, but if the wind came up, she could just become a passenger and Tadpole could take over all of the duties on foredeck.

Cornhusker did decide to sail with us, and that was a good thing. We had only one race, in extremely light air. We didn’t do well in the racing, although we did discover that Black Magic does really well downwind in light air – we lost ground to other boats upwind, but downwind, we swept past several boats, and we caught up to others. Part of that credit has to go to Cornhusker, who did a fantastic job on the foredeck getting that spinnaker up and down and jibing it when needed.

At the end of the day, Cornhusker thanked us for talking her into coming out with us. “Yesterday, I thought life was over,” she said. “But now I think it might go on.”

I owe a lot to Cornhusker. There have been times when I have been discouraged and I have wanted to quit. Pat tries to encourage me with really silly pie-in-the-sky ideas of what I might accomplish, like regional championships: big fuckin’ bullshit deal. Cornhusker has always been the realistic optimist – what I can do now, this weekend, what I do well, what I’m going to be doing better soon (but in a more realistic time frame than Pat’s).

Sunday, Cornhusker didn’t feel up to sailing with us. We got Cap’n Groovy on crew since the weather prediction was for the wind to get pretty stiff, which it did eventually. Cornhusker did take some pictures, however, as we set sail.

For all that Cornhusker has done for me, the very least I can do is to show support for her. Yes, the crew is supposed to be devoted to the captain, but also, the captain is devoted to the crew. In terms of loyalty, Cornhusker is the very best crew there is. I owe her the same sort of loyalty back.