By Charlotte Byus
For many years we have gathered with friends who are, or were, sailors to watch the Harvest Moon Regatta. Back in ’85, RR and I purchased our first Sail Boat, a 2-27 Cal. This boat had lots of work to be done on her as she had set for two years during a not so nice divorce. With that said, it was the best way for me to learn about sail boats and to calm my fears of it tipping over. What this boat also taught me was the love to go as fast on a sail boat as I do in a vehicle. And that is how I learned to enjoy watching racing of sail boats.
Some of our new friends were very knowledgeable about sailing from tying rope to tweaking sails, and I tried to absorb every ounce of this information. Tweaking sails means you set your sails just right to go faster, I liked that more than I should have.
Those of us who didn’t participate in off shore races would head to Galveston, purchase a bucket of chicken and congregate at the Poop Deck on the Seawall. There are at least two hundred boats of various sizes that participate in this off shore race to Port Aransas. The race starts at 2 pm with the largest of the boats and there are at least 3 to 4 classes that will start after this time. So you get to see all kinds of sails, boats, and lots of maneuvers to make it to the start line first.
By 3 pm most of the boats are off and away and having so much fun. Needless to say, it takes a lot of hard work to be first in their class. You can also watch first timers make many mistakes, some you can laugh at and some you pray that they make it to the end.
As the years go by the friends have dwindled for any number of reasons, but us die-hards try to make the trek every year, and this year was no exception. Last year, we inducted Shannon & Paul to the new adventure, and they enjoyed the fun and crazy people we call friends. This year, it was mostly old Seabrook shipyard souls. I think our friends on T Deck were in the race. If so, Good Luck to Geoff, Scotty and crew.
[10-14-2019]
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