MAX EBB — "M
ax," I wrote in big letters with the marking pen. Yes, it had come to that. My longtime regular crew were getting too old for foredeck work, and the young students like Lee Helm, whom I can usually count on when the wind isn't good enough for their windsurfers or kiteboards, were starting to refer to "prior commitments" in response to my crew calls. So there I was at the Crew List Party, in search of some young winch grinders and foredeck hands. I stuck the name tag on my windbreaker. "Don't forget to shift the name tag to your shirt when you delaminate," the woman at the check-in table reminded me. I thanked her and set a direct course for the pupu table, where the crowd of early arrivals seemed to be concentrated. It wasn't long before I spotted Lee with a plate full of sushi. Her name tag said she was crew looking for a boat. "Ahem," I confronted her. "I thought you said you were way, way, way too busy with finishing your thesis to race with me in the spring series." "Chill, Max," she responded. "I'm, like, only here looking for a Transpac ride. I really don't have the spare cycles for buoy racing in the next few months." "I don't know, Lee," I said, challenging her reasoning. "These Crew List Parties don't seem to attract many Transpac skippers." "For sure," she shrugged. "The odds are against it. But hey, you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket." I filled up my own plate with choice bits of raw fish and fresh berries, and we both set off around the room to see what the market looked like this year, from both the buyer's and seller's points of view.
O
ur first encounter was with a young man whose tag read "Stan Chun," and before we could even start a conversation he handed me a business card. "Foredeck Manager," the card read, with a list of the boats he had raced on and a sailplan of one of the larger ones printed on the card. "Great idea," I said. "I should have thought of making up boat business cards." Next we ran into an older woman named Roxanne Scholes, according to her name tag. She didn't have a card, but was handing out a three-page curriculum vitae of her sailing experience. It didn't show any serious racing, but a lot of cruising and a couple of offshore passages. Page 100 •
Latitude 38
• March, 2017
"Presentation is everything," Lee observed. "But, like, if you really want to attract the crew you need, the approach should be aimed accurately at the target demographic, and the benefits need to speak to their needs." "Which means what?" I asked. "If you want the loyalty of any of us starving college students, you have to, like, feed us!" Lee stated this as if it should be obvious to anyone. "I think I serve pretty good boat lunches on race days," I said defensively. "And good snacks, too: Usually ginger snaps and those chocolate-covered espresso beans that everyone loves." "For sure," Lee agreed. "And it's great that you take custom sandwich orders, so I can get my favorite, tuna with no tomato. And by the way, all boat sandwiches should be no tomato, so they don't get soggy so fast. But, like, that's just the beginning of crew food. I mean, like, your yacht club has a great weekend morning breakfast service. Set the dock time early enough to treat everyone to a nice breakfast. They'll be much more likely to show up on time if there's eggs Benedict in the deal. And, like, if someone is going to flake out and miss the race, you'll know an hour sooner so you might have time to find a replacement." "That can get pricey," I objected. "Maybe I could do that for just the major regattas."
"If you want the loyalty of any of us starving college students, you have to, like, feed us!" "Cheap compared to new sails," she responded. "And good for at least as much speed around the course. It makes the difference between holding on to good crew and always dealing with newbies." We continued our stroll around the hall while I mentally computed the cost of a club breakfast, with tax and tip, times the number of crew, times the number of races. "Peggy!" Lee called out to someone she knew. "Peg DeMeter!" Haven't seen you since that wild Coastal Cup." "That was quite a ride," she recalled. "Did you ever get the Windex tabs straightened out after our mast-in-thewater broach?" "I just took them off," she said. "The backstay crane is a good enough angle
reference for apparent wind angle, and it never needs adjusting. Less weight aloft, too." "Are you recruiting for the next Coastal Cup?" I asked. "No, that crew is all set. I'm working on building up a bigger crew pool for the weekly beer can series. I like to have about three times as many crew on my list as I need, because I don't expect anyone to do every race." We watched Peg's recruiting style in action as two welldressed women came over, not walking at all like sailors in their heels. Their names were May Day and Lilly Pond, and the name tags indicated they were beginners looking for a boat to race on. Peggy encouraged them to sign aboard her small ultralight, and they all waved their phones at each other to exchange contact info. "Doesn't your boat require a much more experienced crew?" I asked when they were out of range. "Not for Friday nights," she explained. "The small jib I use all summer is selftacking, and all the mainsheet trim controls go to the helm station. They won't have to do anything more complicated than switch sides, at least not until they learn the ropes. That's one of the most fun parts of entry-level racing; bringing in entry-level crew and watching them turn into sailors. But the boat has to be set up to make it easy." She went on to describe her semiautomated through-the-forehatch spinnaker setting and dousing system, but I had to bow out of the conversation when I spotted one of my old sailing friends, Jenny Cringle. Jenny had been a regular many years ago, but now she worked for a local sailmaker.