Imagine a veteran race car driver in his thirtieth season, in the middle of his twenty-first Indianapolis 500, running in fourth place looking at his watch and pulling into the pits for a beer. He doesn't, of course, because he is racing and there is a lot of money, prestige and all manner of other issues that come with fame, on the line. He'll tell you that it's not the money but the principle, the history, the event and a list of other things that really matter. He's a liar.

In sailing, when we say we're racing for prestige we aren't lying since there is no cash prize. The "fame" is limited to only a few hundred people in the country who only momentarily care. Those that participated in the event might remember it clear to Tuesday whereupon issues of work, family, finance and the next weekend's event takes over. The only people who can say who won the Cabo San Lucas race in which I met Margo in 1981, are the winners themselves. Maybe.

We race for our own gratification but during the 1995 Cabo race I had to ask if we were even racing at all. Racing requires your full effort to win. If you're second, you haven't done enough and you have to go back and examine your cash outlay, motives, abilities and, especially in this game, luck. If you win and you haven't done all you can, well, then you're lucky and fate resides momentarily on your side.

The School entered the race though there was an implied wink among we three instructors who have raced before. Not yet an hour out of Long Beach, having sailed maybe eight of the 820 miles, the first evidence of our "racing" surfaced. As the wind increased in velocity and clocked twenty degrees aft, we needed to set a spinnaker. And so it was decided, though put off for an hour while our onboard chef prepared and served lunch. It sounds something like tea with the Queen. Any activity toward changing sails, also known as racing, waited until the dishes were done.

The eleven of us onboard Anthem enjoyed the first of many delicious, well planned, beautifully prepared meals. A Santa Cruz 50, a real racing boat and our main competition, had already set their spinnaker and were sailing lower and faster and on their way to no cash prize. No matter -- we had strapped on the feed bag. And I, for one, preferred it that way.

Change our fictional race car driver to, say, a triathlete who is running a marathon. It's evening and the triathlete catches a glimpse of the sun setting over her right shoulder. Stop. It's happy hour. She sits down to a table of hors d'oeuvres, enjoys a glass of wine, contemplates the beauty of the universe, pats her mouth with a cloth napkin, excuses herself and continues. Absurd, of course, but that's what we mighty racers did each night of our "race" to Cabo San Lucas.

That was all fine as I was old, almost forty-one, and I didn't need to push myself in the name of a pisron. Further, I was teaching: students had come to learn about racing, one of the many "offshore adventures" offered by The School.