Every program we do something called the "Chili Cookoff." It's a presentation where we make the best chili we can and find some creative skit to present it. The program director and fleet captain (the two highest ranking people on the program) dress up and go to each boat to judge the chili and the presentation. It's probably my favorite thing that we do at Sail Caribbean and I always get my boat really excited for it. We've come up with some great ones in the past like an Indiana Jones themed Chili Cookoff where Indiana fights some evil-doers to eventually capture the sacred bowl of chili, and a redneck-themed cookoff with trash (tires, kitchen sinks, etc.) and a hoe-down. We were determined to do one that was just as good, if not better, and we decided to do a wedding where I married my home-mate, Margaret. To start, we had a ceremony with a flower girl, bride's maids, best man, maid-of-honor, and a preacher. We said our vows (mostly centered around our love for chili) and then had a reception. At the reception, the maid-of-honor and best man spoke (mostly about our love for chili), we had our first dance, a toast (with bowls of chili), and Margaret and I smeared chili in each other's faces. Finally, it was time to depart and we drove off in our dinghy with nalgene bottles trailing behind and a sign that said "just moored." It was probably the most involved chili cookoff I've ever done, but it was worth it because we won!
The second story happened on race day. Most programs have a race day that the staff can be pretty competitive about. The deal with race day is that mild cheating is allowed if you are creative enough. For example, we normally have to drag our dinghy in the water as we sail from one destination to another, but it creates a lot of drag. A good, competitive captain will find a way to get the dinghy out of the water before the race begins. In my case, we hoisted the dinghy out of the water using our spare halyard and tied it onto the foredeck of the boat. This time around, I wanted to do something more though, and I've always had a dream of making a spinnaker (a big, usually colorful, ballooning sail that you can hoist when you're traveling with the wind). So we decided to put the dream into action. A bunch of the kids on my boat spent a couple of hours in the morning before the race stitching together four large bed sheets with thick thread to make our spinnaker. We also decided that we needed to write a large message in duct tape to display to the other boats that would represent our boat. On the first night of the program we talk about some of the big rules of Sail Caribbean (no alcohol, drugs, tobacco, etc.) and we tell the kids that if they are ordering a drink at a bar to be sure to emphasize that it must be virgin, and I somewhat jokingly told my boat that you had to say the word "virgin" at least 3 times to get the point across. It quickly became a joke on our boat that whenever someone would swear or say something inappropriate, we would yell "VIRGIN!" at him/her. Sticking with this theme, my kids decided to write "VIRGIN!!!" on the spinnaker for the other boats to see.
When the race begins and we are immediately off the starting line with a good lead, but the other boats slowly catch up and one gets ahead of us while we are neck-and-neck with the second one. As we round an island and start heading with the wind, the kids call for us to "unleash the virgin!" and my mate of the day, Jenny, and I hoist our spinnaker (which I called "the whomper," for those of you who have seen the movie "Wind"). Even though it didn't help our speed much, we got it flying and it was all about the presentation. It was glorious. After a few minutes, though, the spinnaker began to rip under the pressure of the wind, but we were still able to keep it flying through the finish, giving us enough of a boost to edge out the other boat for second. I was so caught in the moment, that I forgot to take pictures while the spinnaker was whole, but I have some of it flying ripped. It was awesome. It was so exciting that we almost forgot that we were racing.
That's all for now. I hope everything is going well and I hope you're having a great summer!KOMAN
