Figawi 2011 Wind Starved Race
Channel: saquatucket
Date: 2011-05-29

In the beginning, there was a race that challenged sailors across the depth and dimension  of Nantucket Sound under nearly any conditions that Poseidon would throw their way. This routinely meant sailing in Fog a common condition of late spring and early summer on Cape Cod. Fog and has always been a challenge for mariners even in the days when 50,000 coastal schooners sailing mostly by their whit's annually passed through the Sound. In fact routine conditions of fog had a lot to do with naming this race the Figawi. 

Today, the litigious society we live in has effected  the thinking of a valorous Race Committee. The start of the 40th Annual Figawi race was postponed three hours because of all things... FOG.  This resulted in an obvious and apparent dilemma, that of little or no wiggle room for nearly every vessel in fleet to be able to complete the race in typical conditions before the time limitation of the race.  By way of example, in a South-SE breeze a typical small boat run to Nantucket is dead upwind can exceed six hours. Time frame allowed  by the RC for CLUB CAR in this video was less than 6 hours and less for 3/4's of the fleet. Therefore, this race window set by the RC was impossible yet the management refused to budge past a 1900 curfew.