Slow Track To Havana

Offshore racing is all about the highs and lows

- Peter Nielsen

We called it quits at midnight, about 20 miles north of the Dry Tortugas. For Russ Hoadley, owner of the Catalina 425 Blue Heron, and his crew, the first St. PetersburgHabana race in 58 years was over.

Since late afternoon we’d been inching down the Florida coast in what was usually more or less the right direction, south, but sometimes north, east or west, depending on the whims of the fickle zephyrs that whispered coyly and then melted away without so much as a teasing sigh to fill our sails. Kite up, kite down: genoa down, reacher up. And vice-versa. So it went. Around us, the lights of some of the other 70-odd boats in the 284-mile race, which had started the day before on February 28, glowed red, green or white. Every so often, word of yet another boat retiring came through the VHF in a burst of static.