When Mitch Booth (the creator of the Volvo Extreme 40) asked Larry Harteck and I to sail one of five VX-40 catamarans at a "regatta" last month, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what we were getting ourselves into. We knew the boats would be fast. At 40 feet long, twenty-three feet wide, weighing around 2,750 pounds and lofting a little over 1,000 square feet of sail up wind and 1,700 square feet down wind, the horsepower to weight ratio was extreme (by comparison, a Farr 40 has a similar upwind sail area, weighs almost four times more and has many times the wetted surface area of the VX-40). We knew that the "regatta" would take place in Baltimore Harbor. We knew that the Volvo 70 Ocean Race boats would be in town and that their in-shore race would take place during our lay-day, so there might be a few spectators. Other then that, details were few. But hey, we had done this sort of thing before (even if it was some time ago), how much could things have changed.

We soon discovered that the word "fast" does not even begin to describe the VX-40. It fly's a hull in 6 knots of wind while going 10 knots through the water. When a 15 knot puff comes through (more on Baltimore "puffs" later), it accelerates from 10 knots to over 20 knots so fast that if you are not sitting down or holding on to something you find the boat accelerating out from underneath you to the point where staying on your feet becomes a big problem. When the breeze is blowing a steady 15 knots, boat speed is rarely under 20 knots, and only when you tack, jibe or luff the sails.

We also discovered that while Baltimore Harbor appeared to offer any number of great places to hold what Larry and I would have previously called a "regatta" (the Patapsco River turning basin at 1.75 miles by 1.75 miles of relatively open water surrounded by low lands and the odd warehouse, wharf or bridge seemingly the perfect spot) but the race organizers had another venue in mind for this "regatta". The racetrack they chose was Baltimore's inner harbor. Averaging 275 yards wide and 1,300 yards long, with a number of 20 and 30 story high-rise buildings to the north, Federal Hill Park ("hill" being the operative word) to the south and mid-rise condos, office buildings and hotels to the east and west, the harbor was very much the nautical equivalent of a NASCAR short track. But that wasn't the end of it. The place was crammed with five or six historic tall sailing ships including the 180 foot, 150 year old "USS Constellation", a number of ferries, tugs and water taxis, a 275-foot NOAA survey ship, a WWII submarine, a couple of 140-foot yachts and five VOR 70's, all berthed around the perimeter of the small harbor (many of which decided they needed to come and/go at inopportune moments). Then, just to make it really interesting, when the wind was in the North (which it was much of the time) the high rise buildings steered and focused the wind so that one minute it was blowing four knots and five seconds later it was blowing 15 knots. Add to this incredible setting the five, 40-foot hull flying catamarans tearing around at 20 knots and thousands of spectators cheering from the sidelines or peering down from the numerous high-rises and you have the yacht racing equivalent of a NASCAR race.

As contrived and over produced as this "regatta" tailored for spectator viewing and sponsor exposure might seem, when the five minute gun sounded, all of these potentially less than Corinthian circumstances faded away. They had to. With closing speeds approaching 40 knots on occasion, frequent calls for sea room, ferry traffic and multiple camera boats speeding around, there was no time to think about the "show". And yet, after eighteen, two and a half lap races over five afternoons, the thrill never waned. In fact, the "show" somehow all seemed appropriate, even if our forty-something bodies expressed a differing opinion.

As it turned out, the four crew members on our boat had the oldest combined age in the fleet by a wide margin. At 49, Cam Lewis (America's Cup participant, yachtsman of the year, etc…) was the oldest, so he drove our boat for most of the "regatta". Larry drove a few races and managed to give us our only first place finish (by several hundred yards) but only after narrowly missing a camera boat who seemed to think it was all right to get in between us and the weather mark just as we bore off to round it (at 15 knots). Much of Baltimore must have heard Larry yell, "get the *%&! out of the way" in that quiet voice we all know so well, which, in retrospect, was made even more humorous by the combined look of irritation and panic from the incredulous senior race organizer driving the camera boat, who seemingly could not understand why we would want to mess up such a great photo-op with a proper mark rounding.

All in all we had an amazing experience. No one died. We returned home with all our digits and we didn't break the borrowed boat. We renewed a number of old friendships and made many new ones. We even managed to maintain our amateur racing status, which is unfortunately becoming an increasing rarity, even in little old Santa Barbara.

Doug Deaver

05/10/06