Sailing Blog
Somalis, Mini-Vans and Snow; UP NEXT: St.Thomas Rolex Regatta »
March 23, 2011
On Wednesday morning, an airport taxi picked me up outside the house at 5:45 a.m. for departure to St. Thomas amidst heavy snow that was falling on top of frozen rain and sleet. Now don’t get me wrong, the large number of Somali cab drivers we have in Minneapolis are very nice people and I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to establish a new life after being forced from a war-torn country, but good drivers they are not. Throw in a front wheel drive mini-van and extremely poor driving conditions, and I had a feeling it was going to get interesting.
Halfway into our ride, we were doing about 45 mph on interstate 494 (3 lane freeway) when the van got loose and we started veering left towards the median wall at a high rate of speed. “Oooohhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…….” I exclaimed from the back seat while gripping the arm rests like a senior-citizen on a runaway Rascal. The driver turned the steering wheel hard to the right, and just before impact the wheels gripped, wall avoided. We veered hard right and started an elongated spin that placed us back in the middle of the freeway facing headlights that would find their brakes useless in those conditions; the wall a few moments earlier now looked like a couple of soft pillows compared to this predicament. With honking cars narrowly passing on both sides, our dance across 494 continued. I am not sure if I was screaming like a young child in a haunted house at this point or not, but once the van stopped, we stuck the landing on the right shoulder pointing the same direction as the traffic, unscathed. After a few deep breaths, the driver and I thanked our respective spiritual leaders, put the blinker on and merged back into traffic. No coffee needed today, thank you.
Now the problem is I am not sure how to classify this in the Karma department. Was it bad Karma that we were involved in such a harrowing experience in the first place, or was it good Karma that we were able to drive off without a scratch on us. I’m sure this will manifest itself over the next couple of days, but my hope is that I did not use up all of the good luck for the team on INTAC racing at the 2011 International Rolex Regatta in one trip to the airport.
The Rolex regatta takes place in the waters off of St. Thomas and we will be swapping windward marks and offsets for islands and reefs. With very few one-design boats in attendance, the racing is based off the CSA (Caribbean Sailing Association) Rating system, and from what I can tell, the rating system is just as unorthodox as the race courses. But just like racing One-Design, PHRF or IRC, you still need good speed, tactics and clean boathandling to have a good result.
Our team on INTAC will have one other Melges 32 to compete against with Dave West and his team on Jurakan in attendance. We will need to work on keeping our eyes on the big picture as it will be very easy to get into a match race type scenario with the other 32. The team on Jurakan is very familiar with the Caribbean type of racing, and knows how to maximize their 32 to the optimum rating. We will largely have the same team on INTAC that we did in Key West, sans Peter Homberg, but the very capable Anthony Kotoun will be serving as tactician to guide us around his home waters. We have a practice day scheduled on Thursday, and racing takes place on Friday throughout the weekend.
Stay tuned for action from the race course, and the reports on the many predicted Rum squalls that have a tendency to sweep across the region.
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