Sometimes you just can't avoid the inversion at the front of the sail and keep the boat upright. The same weekend on San Francisco Bay that the above race I mentioned was on, we assembled the boats on the Presidio beach, and had to sail them to impound at the docks behind one of the tourist piers. When I got my boat ready to go, I had no crew yet for the weekend, so I stuffed a girl on the beach into my drysuit for weight on the boat. She had never been sailing before.
The bay was CRANKING. The kind of cranking where spray is being blown off the whitecaps, water almost black, with streaks all over it. We went with main only downwind. I might have been using the back two feet of the main, sailing as low as I dared, with me on the wire, and the girl grinning thinking that this sailing stuff was really fun. She had no idea what danger we were in, but we were racing for money on the weekend, and I needed the money at that time, so the boat HAD to get there.
I sailed into the lee of Alcatraz to jibe, and fortunately, the docks were in the lee of the pier.
I caught a ride to St. Francis, and walked in with wet foul weather gear still on. There were people entering to go to some awards function in black tie. I walked back to the bar to try to find a crew. Fortunately, the International 14 Worlds were just finishing up, so there were plenty of guys in the bar looking for another ride.
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