I was in a Corinthian Yacht Club boat race today.

We arrived at the Sausalito boat dock at 10:21 am, with fleece and fowlies (fowl weather outer wear). The sun was out and the day was gorgeous. the water was glass, then moment we pushed off a northern wind blew The Aggressor into the bay. John, the skipper patiently taught the green-horns our one task.
Stay high side.
But always climb around front of the bow, from starboard to port, don't step over the jib line and if 'pull the sheet', is called, someone has to go to the bow and pull the bottom of sail back into the boat.
Sarah and I spun with the morning coffee, hmm-kay. Halyard, jib sheet, main sheet, Spinnaker, don't step on the ropes and highside, sit with feet out of the boat and head through the life lines, leaning in a puking over the side position. Sarah and I took our job very seriously. The men in the back pulled lots of lines and tightened battens and boom vangs, they must have gotten a kick out of the two busy bodies in front, running from one side of the boat to the other. By the end of the day I had to remind Sarah that really, though it seemed like we did a lot of work, we were only moving from one side to the other.
Most of this happened before the race even began. This was another delecious mystery since our faithful, entrusted skipper, forgot the race rules and corse chart. Three false starts later, we were off but it took 30 minutes of manuvering and one of us had to lean over the bow, past the jib sheet to check for the 140+ boats gliding on the same winds in a tight cluster, holding area, waiting for the starting gun to fire. "Boat at uh- port-bow, about 11 o'clock, oh about 50 yards away" I got the port and starboard part eventually and saved the day when I shoved off Hot Chocolate in a tight bottle neck with about a million and a half dollars worth of fiberglass all rounding the last marker. Yes, my foot got close enough to another boat today that the shove saved us from a side swipe. Hot Chocolate's force could not out match her weightlessness and I pushed her to safety, the Agressor moved into key position.
Later we joined the others at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, watched the sun set, and ate dinner at a banquet hall the size of Hogwarts.