'Wet, exhausted — and strangely happy': Thinking about the Figawi, Cape Cod race of races
When I was growing up, my father bought a series of nearly ruined sailboats. We’d fix them up, sail them for a season or two, then sell them to get a potentially better one. One boat even had ratlines that allowed us to swarm up the rigging like pirates. Navigating shallow waters was much improved with a view from above.
These were traditional sailboats, comfortable, beamy, and sturdy with solid pine masts. No one ever accused us of being fast, though. So racing was never our thing. Voyaging was.
Years later, I was talking to a woman whose husband was a sailor. Did she ever go out racing with him?
“Once,” she said. “Just once. Oh my God, it almost wrecked our marriage. He turned into a raving maniac! It was awful.”
My own boats — and my means — have been more modest. I’ve never owned anything remotely fast. So Cape Cod’s biggest sailboat race — the annual FIGAWI race — has been something best experienced from shore.
A little history. In 1866, nine clipper ships set sail from FooChow (Fuzhou) Harbor in China bound for London in what was called The Great Tea Race. After 97 days at sea and almost 17,000 sea miles traveled, the fastest clippers arrived in the English Channel within sight of each other. It was the ultimate sailboat race of all time.
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In 1972, three Cape Cod buddies decided to race to Nantucket and back. Soon, other sailors were joining from all over New England. Party here. Race to Nantucket on Saturday. Overnight — and party there. Race home on Sunday. Party again. Take a year to recover. Repeat each year for 50 years.
Cape Codders love a good party, but the race’s annual Charity Ball raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for local causes. The race is a boost to local businesses and gets a lot of sailors’ boats out in the harbor by Memorial Day when, inertia being what it is, sailors might have waited longer. And God knows, a race to Nantucket is a good way to wring the kinks out of a boat and crew after a long winter.
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God knows too, most racing sailboats are not organized as a democracy. It’s worth remembering, races are for an afternoon; friends are for life.
I wanted to get out on the water this time to film the start and write about the race for you. So I got myself a water “resistant” camera and booked passage on the powered catamaran Bay Spirit out of Hyannis Harbor. A genial young couple runs the vessel, chartering the boat for a crowd of photographers, many from the Cape Cod Art Center. Under difficult conditions, they gave us a good time.
Race Day dawned raining. Slowly, rain gave way to a fog dense enough to wet everything exposed to it. You could see maybe 100 yards. One of the owners was frantically trying to dry off the benches with towels, but it was a losing battle. With their two hulls spaced wide apart, catamarans offer spacious decks and lounging space below. As we got out near the starting line, sailboats zoomed in and out of our field of vision.
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Post-COVID Nantucket wasn’t ready for the fleet yet — so there would be two races, Saturday and Sunday — out into the ocean, around a buoy and back. We had a smaller fleet this year, some 60 boats.
Starting a sailboat race is tricky for the organizers and the boats as well. Cross the starting line too soon and you have to loop around and try again. Be too far back and, in a close race, you might not make it up. So you’ve got boats zooming around behind the line, trying not to hit each other. Add dense fog to make the whole process more frightening — and there you have it.
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The sight of a big sailboat heeled way over is sure exciting, but it’s hard on the boat and hard on the crew, most of whom serve as human ballast, perched up on the high rail. Anything below not well-secured goes crashing around and, with responsibilities topsides, there’s nothing you can do about it. Need the bathroom? Going below is a funhouse experience, heeled rail down with water racing by the portholes and the whole business plunging up and down on the waves.
It’s an acquired taste. My old back can’t tolerate too much of it anymore, but God I miss it, fog and all. Such boats as we could see bashed their ways out of sight, and we headed back to Hyannis, wet, exhausted — and strangely happy.
Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at colunresponse@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod: Figawi sailboat race spurs memories of boat racing history
