Harvest Moon 2002

The Harvest Moon Regatta, which takes place each fall, is one of the biggest offshore races on the Texas coast. The race starts in Galveston and ends in Port Aransas, a distance of about 150 nautical miles. The start is in the afternoon, so we were able to leave Kemah that morning. 253 boats started the race. It was fairly light air at the start, but adequate, and off we went down the coast.

The skipper being a meteorologist, our strategy for the race was to go farther offshore than the other boats, on the theory that the wind would die near shore after sunset. As it turned out, while we did probably have more wind where we were, there was plenty to go around. After a peaceful afternoon, the wind built for most of the night. The sail in the picture is the big 150 genoa, which was up all night because it got too rough to go forward and take it down in the dark. It was a pretty wild ride. My watch was from 11 to 3, at which time the wind was 20ish. After I went below, the wind continued to build, and I proceeded to get sick as a dog, in which condition I spent the rest of the race. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that I had had nothing to eat, and very little to drink, since lunch the previous day, and of course by the fact that I was below, although I did remain horizontal virtually the entire time. I listened to the sound of the boat crashing into waves and to the VHF. A couple of boats lost their rudders.

We did eventually make it to Port Aransas. Our time for the race was right about 24 hours. We got a great spot rafted up outside a fishing boat at the end of a dock, with only one boat outside us. Most of the rafts were larger and some were enormous, since there were a lot of boats from elsewhere crowding into one marina. It was a lot of fun to walk around and look at boats and socialize. There was a big party Saturday night, with live music on either side of the extremely long awards ceremony. I wasn't in condition to take advantage of Bacardi's sponsorship of the regatta. I drank vast quantities of water and spent most of my time ashore, but I never did feel completely back to normal during the time we were in Port A.

Then on Sunday, it was time to head back.