Severeweather warnings did not keep members of the Cayman Catboat Cluboff the waters of North Sound in last Saturday's Christmas CatboatRace at Morgan's Harbour.Sport
Christmas Catboat Race
Severeweather warnings did not keep members of the Cayman Catboat Cluboff the waters of North Sound in last Saturday's Christmas CatboatRace at Morgan's Harbour.
The race, sponsored by Calypso Grill, hada large number of spectators.
Catboat races in theNorth Sound off Morgan's Harbour for the first time since 1976.
The crews prepared the boats in a lightdrizzle and a growing breeze. The six Catboats alongside the docksat Morgan's Harbour found themselves under-supplied with crewas many members were away on vacation for the Christmas holidays.
Catboat Club members tried to persuade someof the spectators to get in the boats, and though there were manywith catboat experience, they were reluctant to participate. Theweather did clear up; and four boats did compete.
Veteran Catboat racer, Kem Jackson, sailingDavid Foster's 'Brac Cat' with a new crew aboard, turned overin the first race. Jackson righted the boat, bailed it out andgot into the second race of the day with his regular partner,Captain Asley Ebanks.
The four boats that raced last Saturdayhad almost perfect racing weather and two good races. The competitionwas mainly between 'See Her Go' with Captain Crosby Ebanks andhis crew of Marybeth Sayer and Austin Ebanks, against 'TraditionI' with Captain Mark Clark and his strong crew of Carson Ebanksand Kenneth Ebanks.
At one point in the second race, 'SkinnyLeeLee', 'Tradition I' and 'See Her Go' were nose to nose, ormore cor
rectly, stem to stem, not five feet apart, charging along to windwardfor over five minutes. Captain Crosby eventually moved out aheadwith sheer boat speed and 'Tradition I' lagged back and took offon another tack.
Tim Adam, Ervin DeRoche and H.E. Ross wereon the ill-fated to third place 'SkinnyLeeLee', and though theywere the first across at the start of the second race, 'SkinnyLeeLee' could never maintain speed. It was discovered after therace that a boom bridle was missing from the boat's appointments,which resulted in the crew of Skinny LeeLee using only four-fifthsof the vessel's sail power.
Captain Crosby felt the frustration of havingthe fastest boat and losing the race as 'See Her Go' became entangle
d in the course buoy mooring line after leading 'Tradition 1'by over 100 meters.
The Olympian crew took advantage of CaptainCrosby's situation and drove past them as they were attemptingto
get steam up again. The race between those two held on to thefinish line, with Clark's strategy being to push Cr
osby around to break his momentum and eventually to speed offto cross the finish line four seconds ahead of 'See Her Go'.
Two races in one day saw 'See Her Go' finishbehind 'Tradition 1', with the last race very nearly mirroringthe last race of the October Month Of Races on the last day ofPirates Week, where 'Tradition I' won by seven seconds.