THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607220216
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 101 lines
There are two types of crews in Portsmouth's annual Cock Island Race.
There are the cruisers - laid back, drinking a beer, working on their tans.
Then there are the racers.
Vernon ``Bumps'' Eberwine and his family are racers.
Bumps owns the sailboat. His son, David, arranges the races. Their crew on the Sea Star - including David's wife, Sherl, and his daughter, Julie Eberwine Mizelle - are playing to win Saturday morning as they scramble about the deck.
Since the Cock Island Race began in 1988, the Eberwines have taken their share of prizes.
Now, if only the wind would oblige. Fickle and petulant as a toddler, it swats haphazardly at Sea Star.
``Let's tack, guys! Let's tack!'' yells David, ordering a change in the boat's direction.
The boom - the large beam that stretches from the mast and anchors the bottom of the mainsail - swings around. Crew members pull furiously at lines and crank winches. The jib, the triangular front sail, snaps across the boat into a new position.
Everyone else scoots on their rear ends across the deck, heads down so they don't get conked by the boom. As Sea Star tips sharply to the right, or starboard, they plant themselves on the left side, or port, their feet dangling over, to balance things out.
They race past the construction at the Portmouth Naval Medical Center, past the Army Corps of Engineers offices, past container ships and the coal piers.
Almost all the other boats have dropped way behind. Most are only just passing the coal piers; hundreds of pointy sails jut up like rooftops of a town.
But that doesn't matter. There's one boat ahead.
Silent Running ``owes time'' to Sea Star. Each boat's finishing time is handicapped to compensate for the different types of boats participating. Even so, Sea Star has to stay very close.
Bumps leans far to the left to see past the sails, his right hand on the wheel and left arm leaning on the rail. David shouts orders. The crew watches intently as the wind plays with the sails on the boat ahead, to predict what's coming.
It's not like driving a car. The wind only gives a crew so much control. One bad choice, and they'll spend a long time fixing it.
Another boat, Slingshot, pulls ahead. The Sea Star tacks to the right. A mistake.
Bumps groans.
``Ugh - I've never been beat so badly.'' He stares glumly at the tourquoise stern of Slingshot.
Bumps, 71, started sailing before he was 10. His first boat cost $10 and came home on the running board of a Packard.
His boat these days is 36 feet long, with a mast that stretches 58 feet above the water. He and his wife lived on it for four years.
By the Norfolk naval base, Sea Star zooms past a small fishing boat and scoots around a channel marker that indicates the turnaround point.
The clean, no-nonsense jib drops to the deck. Up goes a sail with blue and red stripes. It's the spinnaker, a light, puffy sail used when running away from the wind. Sea Star glides faster now, about eight knots, but the ride feels calmer with the wind at one's back.
Bumps takes a break and goes below. Sitting on a bench in the cabin, he slathers suntan lotion on his freckled arms and legs.
``They call this thing a pussy-cat race,'' he says. ``But there's a lot of decisions to make.''
A few other boats have made the turnaround. Behind Sea Star, brightly colored spinnakers are popping up like flowers.
Now Sea Star must maneuver to avoid the oncoming wave of slower boats, which are still heading toward the turnaround. The other vessels lean left and right as they tack into the wind. A woman calls to them, joking, ``You're going the wrong way!''
These are the cruisers, not the racers.
Bumps is closing in on Slingshot. ``Pretty soon I'll be able to see the whites of their eyes,'' Sherl says, and everyone laughs.
Far ahead, Silent Running crosses the finish line. But if Sea Star makes it in about six minutes, it may still win.
``Come on, breeze, don't quit,'' Bumps calls to the wind.
It's too close to call. Slingshot also crossed ahead of Sea Star, and another vessel finished right behind.
The crew will have to wait for the race officials to figure the handicaps and announce the results that night.
Even so, the mood is good as Bumps and crew pack the spinnaker into its bag, gather up the mainsail and motor into Portside, docking alongside the Conspiracy, one of their competitors. Out come beer and sandwiches.
Now, even the serious racers can party, and compare notes on the water and the wind.
``Was that shifting or not?'' Bumps calls to the skipper of the Conspiracy. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS color photos/The Virginian-Pilot
Bump N Grind plows upwind toward the turnaround mark in the
Elizabeth River.
Crews hang over the side to balance, from left, Cyrano, Silent
Running and Conspiracy at the start of the Cock Island Race.
Graphic
NO RESULTS
The results of the Cock Island Race were not available from race
officials Saturday.
KEYWORDS: SAILBOAT RACING by CNB