One wild night at sea

Impossible Dream and its adaptive sailing crew set out to win an overnight race, but the weather ultimately defeated them. Story by Herb McCormick for Sailing World:

It was just after 0200 on a wild and woolly August morning, just north of Block Island on the rather thrashed waters of Rhode Island Sound. On the 58-foot catamaran Impossible Dream, we were about 12 hours into and a third of the way around our ­129-nautical-­mile racecourse during the annual running of the Ida Lewis Distance Race. We’d come to a crossroads: It was time to make the sort of decision one never wishes to contemplate in any offshore boat race.

Quickly closing in on Rhode Island’s shoreline, in deteriorating conditions with the wind rising and a crew scattered about in various states of blurry awareness or total incapacitation, should we 1) tack for the next mark, dead to weather, off Long Island; or 2) cut our losses, ease sheets, and head home? – Full report