Berkeley Marine Center

"With zero wind?" asked the tactician. "How would that work?" "I mean, like, you already fi gured out that the anchor in the mud is like the keel, and keel of the boat in the water is like the sail. We're using the same principles to work the mud-water interface instead of the water-air interface. If you can fi nd an anchor with a decent lift-drag ratio in the mud, you can tack up-current." "What would that anchor look like?" I asked. "I dunno," replied Lee with a contrived shrug. "Would make a good design contest for an engineering class. I mean, we're all getting tired of that egg drop contest from the roof of the mechanical engineering building, and the concrete canoe race converged on the optimal design, like, a decade ago." "I'm thinking it would have to look like a sideways pizza knife," said the mainsheet trimmer. "You'd need a double rode to control the angle," added the foredeck crew. "You'd have to sail it at the right angle through the mud, sort of like a kiteboard kite."

"I'm thinking it would have to look like a sideways pizza knife."

"At least three pizza knives, for stability in roll and pitch," the tactician thought out loud. "With spoon-like dishes around each blade wheel, to keep the blades from digging in too deep." "What keeps them from popping out of the bottom?" asked the foredeck crew. "Remember, the tension on the rode has an upward pull." "Weight," suggested the mainsheet trimmer. "Or angle." "I worry about the friction of those dishes sliding along the top of the mud," said the foredeck crew. "That stuff down there is like glue — I think the antidigging-in device should roll, not slide."

The brainstorm session lasted all through lunch, and only ended when a wind line fi nally reached us. As the only boat to have already rounded the mark, we sailed off on the next leg with a monstrous lead over the rest of the boats in our division, and ahead of some of the boats in the faster divisions too. "Lee picked the wrong race to miss," I remarked. "She'd love being on the boat right now." But the wind line was not the afternoon sea breeze fi ll we expected. It faded and then died again, and the race was abandoned when it was clear that no-one could fi nish within the time limit. Lee was right after all. And if we had only had the sense to withdraw fi rst, we'd be taking home the hardware for a division win.

— max ebb

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