By Sister Clean

Part 1

[note: names and identities have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is entirely intentional.]

The not-so-subtle indoctrination into the sail racing culture continued my first night in KW at the aptly named "Sloppy Joes" when the future Mrs. Clean pressed me into service in her quest to tattoo every possible sailor with the logo from USA 570 "Cujo." I was given a stack of temporary tats and told that bonus points were available for imprinting Cujo's competitors in the Melges fleet. Apparently this was the only way that my brother could ever cross the line in the top ten. Although Mer had quite a head start developing her drunken tattooing techniques at Melges worlds the month before, I am a very quick study. The Cujo girls quickly developed a high-tech tattoo application method using the free flowing vodka to stamp countless forearms, faces, necks and even a couple of brave and cute young sailor butts. As the drinks continued to flow, the antics continued and we left Cujo's imprint on many dozens of sailors. While I met plenty of nice and friendly sailors in Key West, there were plenty of deranged ones along with the usual few who held their liquor about as well as the Olsen Twins. Like the guy who walked right up to me and slurred "nice tits" and who I found out later was a medalist in the Sydney Olympics. Or the other top pro, probably an anarchist, who while commenting on the cowboy hat I was sporting felt free to shout "RIDE 'EM BABY" to the standing room-only bar. At the all-girl college I attended there would have been full on protests against this sort of adolescent, politically incorrect, and disrespectful behavior towards women. Lucky for me I grew up with two brothers, lots of male cousins, and a healthy dose of realism…so I smiled and laughed my ass off. Boys will be boys, after all.

Around then I had a lucid moment. I realized that something was amiss. I looked around the bar across the sea of boat logos and red baseball caps…looked right…looked left… where were the girls? WHERE ARE ALL THE GIRLS? Just like Stepford but someone actually removed the girls instead of making them into robots. I had just realized a fundamental fact of sailboat racing…the ratio of men to women was higher than at a tractor pull. The few girls around Key West during Race Week, whether sailors, shore crew, racer chasers, bartenders or the rare professionals (get your minds out of the gutter please, I'm talking about professional sailors) were all in a position we secretly love most: surrounded by guys, the center of attention. They girls had their pick. And when sufficiently lubricated with beer or rum, most of the boys (whether 18 or 80) acted as though they'd been at sea for 6 months rather than 6 hours. Perhaps I was taking advantage, but if a bunch of drunken sailors want to buy me drinks and treat me like Cindy Crawford, who am I to deny them their fun?

Just as girl sports reporters who are allowed into the guys locker room get a unique perspective on the behavior of professional athletes, hanging with a bunch of sail racers at a regatta gave me insight into the inner sanctum. I have personally conducted extensive research into this particular subject and have proven conclusively that the following experiment yields the same results 100% of the time: Start with one large group of hetero men, add alcohol and a location far from daily life, responsibilities, and significant others, throw in a heaping wad of cash, simmer for a few hours and sure enough, everyone winds up at the strip bar. I'm no scientist, but I would challenge anyone to try this experiment and come up with a different result. And don't even ask - strippers in a hotel room do NOT count as a different result.

But, I digress. Back to sailing…I learned in Key West that sailors are mostly a friendly and intelligent bunch and socializing is part of the package. I found out that sailboat racing is athletic and competitive and way more hard core than I ever imagined. Another valuable lesson I learned in a discussion with a female sailor was that wearing a bikini top is not smart in anything over 25 knots, although I imagine any attempts to do so would be greatly appreciated. Being on the water, staying right on the wharf, going to the sunset party on the dock, kicking back with cocktails and shrimp at the bar in the marina, I also remembered how much I loved living by the water growing up, and how much I've missed it. Note that I still had not seen an actual race on the water save for the video footage shown in the drink tent after the races and the one or two Seamaster Sailing programs Mr. Clean always makes me Tivo at home. My all too brief exposure to this world left me hungry for more knowledge about sailing. After I returned to Michigan and reality smacked me up side the head, I decided to look into it.

Little bro loaded me down with a pile of sailing magazines, a "how to" book and sent me to www.sailinganarchy.com. Afflicted with the inability to sleep, I sat up late at night, hunched over my keyboard Unabomber-style, reading the SA forums. I read threads about KWRW and stumbled through forums with endless debates on sail material. I learned that J/105s are pigs, that Macgregor makes the best ultra-high performance sailboats, and plenty of other random shit about powerboats and politics. I also read highly disturbing advice on marriage, strippers, guns, drugs, and sexual behavior involving rodents.

After Key West, I decided I needed a more legitimate purpose than "racer chaser" to hang out at sailing events and travel to regattas with the younger Cleans, although I wasn't yet sure what purpose that was. While I appreciate eye candy as much as the next person, I've really never been the "groupie" sort of girl. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I want you know I'm being honest here: My last crush was former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, so while glistening pectoral muscles and arrogant, young-buck sailors may excite the impressionable young girls of ports the world over, I'm sorry to say that in Key West I never felt the need to suppress any urges to rip my clothes off at the sight of a bunch of men on boats no matter how good their pickup lines were.

Let me take a step back here. I know you really don't care, but my father desperately wanted his first born to be a boy. Consequently, for as long as I can remember, I played every sport possible. Soccer, volleyball, swimming, track, skiing, water skiing, gymnastics, tennis and even cheerleading. I've hiked through deserts and canyons, white water rafted in some vicious gorges, mountain biked, rappelled down vertical cliffs covered in waterfalls, bungee jumped, and been scuba diving in the Red Sea, the Caribbean and Pacific Mexico.

In my previous life (if I can recall that far back), I was actually a bit of an adrenaline junkie. However sadly, the only new sport I have picked up in the last 8 years has been golf. Yup, I said GOLF. And I'm not even that old. Under the pushover theory of "if you can't beat them, join them" I took it up, and while golf isn't as bad as I thought it would be, the clothes completely suck! For years I tried in vain to get a letter for violating the country club golf clothing policy against shirts without sleeves and collars and shorts above a certain length. I wore tank tops, tiny tees, little skirts, but no matter what I did I couldn't seem to get that letter of reprimand. Only once did I hear a comment about my dress when one of the pros asked me to change my collarless shirt at the beginning of a tournament. Apparently one of the miserable old goats in this Ladies' Day tourney complained about my [GASP] exposed neck and [SHRIEK] uncovered biceps. I was thrilled, and walked into the Pro Shop to find a new shirt. And there it was. It had a collar. It had sleeves. And best of all it was 3 sizes too tight. I walked up to the whiney old biddy and thanked her for making sure I was appropriately dressed while the pros and caddies tried to throttle back their laughter. Then I won the longest drive in spite of a pair of 36D's that make the correct swing plane a practical impossibility for me. Since the adrenaline rush of golf is limited to drinking too many Sea Breezes and trying to flip the golf cart on the hills, I'd been thinking for some time that I needed a new hobby.

Coincidentally, months before all this Clean had told me of the Flying Tiger 10 meter boat, and it had been about as interesting to me as most of you would find a painstakingly detailed description of the new spring Chloe platform wedge. In typical younger brother fashion, Clean had asked me to co-sign a loan to buy the boat and, oh yeah by the way, he & Mer had already put down a deposit on number 62. After Key West and some time browsing the FT10 forum, a new idea formed and in one of those pivotally spontaneous moments of newfound freedom, I told Al & Mer that I no longer wanted to co-sign their loan. I wanted to own it with them. "Wonder Twins" no more, we're now "The Fantastic Four" with the 36 pound, 38 inch, nephew Clean squaring off the group. I figured the plan was that Clean & Mer would be the racers and we'd have a nice crew of weekend sailors. My son and I would run a tight shore crew and logistics team. I'd get the cute shirts and gear, make sure we'd have ample tattoos and booze and Van Wilder the greatest shore parties. It seemed like a great plan. They'd race, I'd organize shit and we'd cruise around with little Jake after the races. It seemed like a nice new hobby and a fun project to be involved in. Until I went to Miami...

Fast forward to March when I joined Clean & Mer in South Beach for a spontaneous weekend trip to a smaller regatta - Miami Race Week. Another first - Clean is covering a race he's not racing in. We all just had to escape from the miserable Michigan winter, and it was all good when we arrived in South Beach to a sunny 80 degrees. As part of Clean's SA shore crew, again charged with a Very Important Mission, I began my weekend donning a tight tube top with "Sailing Anarchy" written across the chest. Since Mer & I are very shy and reserved, we strolled into the drink tent at the Miami Beach Marina and began once again tattooing sailors from the ocean course boats…TP 52's, J/105's, Mumms, Farrs, and others that I still had yet to see sail in person.

We became complete tattoo sluts, shamelessly slapping them on sailors, vendors and bartenders alike. We took periodic breaks to go up on stage during the awards ceremony to help the winning boats receive their pickle dishes.

Anarchists, I apologize in advance for offending your delicate sensibilities with my crude and filthy language, but it was on Day 3 of MRW that my proverbial cherry was popped. After a difficult night consisting of dinner at Nobu, extensive drinking and other kinds of lovely debauchery in South Beach, I arrived in Coral Gables and made my way to the Shake-a-Leg Marina with the Cleans and another Michigan Anarchist, a sweet, blond boy who is an experienced sail racer and works for a boat builder. So, early Saturday morning, the three Clean musketeers and Hollywood hitched a ride on a spectator boat in Biscayne Bay to watch and report on the races while trying to work off the previous night's hangover and deal with the lack of sleep.

We set out on a brand new, customized pontoon boat owned by Shake-A-Leg. It was specially designed and fitted to allow adults and children with disabilities to get on and off of sailboats from its decks, and for their friends and families to comfortably watch them sail. And on this cool boat began my first day of actually seeing sailboat racing in person and on the water. I was forewarned to bring seasickness medicine (which I forgot) and Mer told me that she spent the entire previous day in the cabin of Warpath's protector because of the rough seas. I was ready…or so I thought. Only, it wasn't rough on the bay, it was heaven. It was sunny and warm and the wind was blowing 12-15 knots (see, I'm already getting the lingo down).

The race boats came so close to our platform that it felt like we were going to be in a massive wreck, and then they all turned and went back the way they came. We got to see the action from the front row on the 50-yard line, and what I saw dazzled me. These little Melges and Etchells were going fast…really, really fast! And the sailors were not just sitting there steering or pulling on lines; they were jumping back and forth to either side of the boat, running, pulling, cranking and hanging off the side of the boat. When the Melges rounded the mark for the first time and raised their spinnakers in unison I realized I had just been completely hooked. It may be just another day on the water to all of you, but for this newbie it was seriously one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed.

At the same time I realized I was utterly screwed. Suddenly, the idea of watching our cool new sport boat from the sidelines as shore crew seemed hollow and unfulfilling. To be continued...

04/14/06