Early on in my sailing career I learned that two sailboats going in the same direction are racing. And so it is.

You are out on a pleasant weekend, blissfully sailing, minding your own business. Stretched out on one of the cockpit cushions is your wife reading Redbook or Southern Living magazine and working out in her mind how with a little push on her part, she can get you to transform her ho-hum kitchen into one of these masterpieces like on page 97.

You on the other hand are dreaming that stretched out on the cockpit cushion is the center-fold subject from another, completely different sort of magazine. You are abruptly shaken out of your reverie by the gurgling sound of a nearby bow wake. Without being obvious you peek behind and sure enough some America's cup wannabe is inching up on you. So now you, almost casually, reach forward and give the jib sheet winch a little tweaking, and while your at it the main isn't exactly right so a pull on the main sheet might just be in order. And the race is on.

He has undoubtedly got the momentum, and probably just had his bottom cleaned, and look at that genoa. It must be brand new because he is still moving up on you. When he unofficially reaches mast abeam, you decide to tack off in a direction you have absolutely no reason to want to go. Your wife notices this and comments and you tell her some improbable lie rationalizing the maneuver. Hey, you could have beat him but it would have been too much trouble. You are, after all a better sailor. There is racing and there is racing.

I began as a Rail Whale, providing ballast on a boat with several sailors that really knew what they were doing. I didn't know what they or I was doing except I was trying my best not to get in anybody's way. Seems as though these knowledgeable sailors could get quite cranky, especially when we fell behind in our fleet. Soon, though, I graduated into a "tailer", pulling up the slack on the jib sheet while a gorilla of sorts cranked his heart out on the jib winch. It's sort of like starting sweeping up at McDonald's and moving up the ladder to Fry Cook. Now the racing we were doing was every Saturday in the NBYA's (Narragansett Bay Yachting Association) racing program. It started out as a "family" racing format, but by the time I came around it had morphed into some sort of serious competitive operation.

There were people that never actually sailed on their boats, but wanted a trophy so bad they let other people (professional sailors) do the actual racing. They spent small fortunes on boats, equipment and sails all for just a trophy! I mean these guys thought they were Ted Turners, Dennis Connors or Gary Jobsons! They hollered at the starting line. They screamed at each other in crossing situations. And they all became Philadelphia lawyers on the USYRU racing rules, protesting rule infractions of miniscule proportions. Needless to say that I became somewhat less enthusiastic with those kind of antics. At my Yacht club we had several boats racing the NBYA and I got to crew on several different boats. They all had similar attitudes and I began to think that I might take up golf or bowling on Saturdays until I started racing in our Club races. These were very casual, with the main goal of each boat to finish the race and then head to the Steak Fry that followed each race. Now that's my kind of racing. In almost 20 years of club racing I think there were only three or maybe four protests. No punching of noses! No calling of names! Actual camaraderie before and after the races. Wow! What fun! We had a lot of races that were just for the fun of it, with casual rules, and no protest committees. And always stressing good sportsmanship and safety. I like that!

Note: Larry Ellison of San Francisco recently bought ...er won the America's cup racing a trimeran that had as much to do with sailing as a Smart Car has with Indianapolis 500. Emil "Bus" Mossbarger , Ted Turner, Tom Blackaller, and many other great America's Cup competitors must be ashamed of what a once great competition has now become!