'The job of the race officer is to provide the best line, the best course, the best racing that conditions will allow'

Really! I'd only been living in the US for a year, and I was beginning to sound like an American. Did I really say that at the competitors' briefing the day before? I had. Worse still, I was going to fail.

We were halfway through the last race of the 1981 Wayfarer North American Championship. The breeze was picking up - a sparkling sailing day, and certainly the best wind of the meeting. The championship was still in the balance, but a windshift had turned the second beat into a close reach. It seemed such a shame to shorten course, yet pointless to send the fleet up the last leg, which would just be a procession.

The sailing instructions allowed us to alter the course during the race, but the spare launch had been disabled during the previous day's storm. We couldn't split the committee boat in two, one half on station at the finishing line and the other half at the leeward mark giving 'the compass bearing of the next mark, and intermittent sounds signals' as called for by the Sailing Instructions.
Surely there was something we could do …

The committee boat crew lost no time in implementing my somewhat unorthodox plan, although doubtful of its success. Motoring dead upwind, they made haste to set the finishing line. In that breeze, a Wayfarer could easily overtake them. Having jumped ship to assume mark boat duty, I swam around the leeward mark - only just in time.

The leading boat was within shouting distance. 'Sail 180° to the finish! I shouted. The crew nearly dropped the spinnaker under the boat.

'Sail 180°!' The crew turned (panic? understanding? I wish I knew) to her helmsman. A startled face appeared under the boom.

'Sail 180°!!!' I held up a hastily written, dripping wet card with '180' written on it.

I wondered, briefly, how this would look if somebody protested.

Verbal instructions, a loop in the course, 'a man overboard cannot be construed as being a vessel, as required by the sailing instructions', boats 'finishing' at two different marks, I'd have ruined their championship for them.

Surely they had seen the '180' card? I glanced up. I don't know what it is that Detroit pumps in to Lake St Clair, but it takes Magic Marker off as clean as a whistle. The bold, clear figures now looked like a pale grey, runny remnant of a hallucinatory dream. My God, I'd never even make the Hollingworth Lake 'B' team if this went wrong. 'Sail 180!!!' The panic suddenly doubled. The leading boat would likely decapitate me if he stuck to the original course. Funny, I don't remember anything about this in the USYRU judge's manual.

'Sail 180, Sail 180' I screamed. It was now or never.

Would they? Wouldn't they? The southerly heading of the fast departing committee boat helped convince them this wasn't some lunatic swimmer, half a mile offshore, playing an obscure practical joke. We laughed about it after the winners picked me up on the way back to shore after the race.

Race officers don't usually get thanked. Nor do they expect it. But among all my trophies, two of the most treasured are a handmade 'M' (Mark missing) flag - a gift from the fleet - and the memory of faces turning from incredulity to anticipation as they realised it was going to be a beat to the finish.