> The moral is the skipper has to keep his head in the game even if that > means > not wearing cool polarized sunglasses.
yes. and wind direction can be almost as important as wind speed. a few years back, we were tacking up into the harbor to finish a race. this was on the Evelyn, and you have to hike hard to keep her off her ears. I was at the helm, we had 12-18 and it was puffy and oscillating like mad. I think CHrisD was on board (C27 Toybox) and Carl Schaefer (C27 Cadence). I saw a disturbance off the bow about 2-3 boatlengths ahead, and before the 3 words of WTF were out of my mouth (I did get "what the" out) we auto-tacked in an instant and I had 3 crew, on the rail and between the lifelines, in the water up to their waists,one guy up to his armpits. This was in July, so there was no fear of hyypothermia, thank goodness. But the shift was a true 90 degrees and in another 30 seconds it went back 90 degrees to its original vector. Most probably, it was a vortex than formed off a cement elevator a few hundred yards to weather that landed in front of us. but boy what a wake up call!!...I take weird looking surface activity much more seriously these days. tf be careful out dare
