Meanwhile, Uncle Al and Anders Friis were having quite the race. Uncle Al was staying between Anders and the mark while defending the left. The boat speed had been pretty even all the way up the beat but about 300 metres from the mark, Al lost his nerve: he and Anders were both on starboard with Al still about 80 m. off Anders' bow and slightly to leeward when the wind veered and both boats were lifted about 10º. Now Anders was almost laying the mark and about 20 m. to windward of Al. Fearing a further lift that might make it impossible to cross Anders, Al talked his crew into letting him tack and "spend some of his lead". Al crossed Anders by a only couple of lengths and he waited those two lengths before tacking on the layline. Now the boats were bow to bow 100 m. from the mark with Al laying it and Anders just below it. With the help of a slight further lift and a lot of of great sailing, Anders was just able to lay the mark, round inside Al and move into the lead. With the rest of the fleet having fallen well back, it would be a two-boat fight down the run.
And that run was a most exciting battle. Knowing very well that whoever rounded first or inside at the next mark would win the race, both Anders and Al gybed to port. With only a boatlength of water between Anders' transom and Al's bow, Al was well placed to take Anders' wind but of course every time Al went up, Anders did likewise. After a few attempts Al and Anders P. decided they would have to try to "outspeed" Anders F. and Sune. And Al and Anders sailed Whistle beautifully to max speed for the wind while they pulled further and further ahead of the other 34 boats. But they couldn't gain a centimetre on Anders and Sune who were likewise sailing Wassail perfectly. Having gone about 200 m. high of the leeward mark on port tack, the boats would have to gybe to starboard. So, Al's next plan was to gybe later than Anders and try to get the inside overlap that way but Anders wasn't buying and waited for Al to make the first move. Finally, it became apparent that if we waited much longer we would be reaching into the mark on starboard and have no hope of catching Anders. So we decided to gybe. As soon as Anders P. handed me the spi sheets, Anders F. threw his boom over. Thinking fast, Uncle Al delayed his gybe until he was right on Anders Friis' wind. (After the race, Anders Friis was disappointed to learn that Al's manoeuvre was not intended to "fake out" Anders but aboard Whistle, we were proud of our fast thinking just the same.) In any case, we took enough of Anders' wind to catch him, but now faced a problem: we could easily take Anders wind and pull even with him by going to windward, but that would be useless because it would leave us on the outside at the mark. So we pointed our bow just to leeward of Anders' transom and hoped we would take enough of Anders' wind to get the overlap. What an exciting couple of minutes! About three lengths from the mark, Anders looked back and announced that Whistle had no overlap. Al was not sure and so took Anders' word for it. As we luffed up and cleared Anders' rudder by a centimetre or two, Al suddenly remembered the spinnaker which would be a good half a metre out in front of the bow that both Al and Anders had been staring at (see illustration below) ...

 Whistle had gained an inside overlap and I'm sure Anders would have given us room if Al had pointed out the overlapping spinnaker. (Oddly enough, less than two weeks later, Uncle Al was telling his crew, Marc Bennett, about this exciting race and how for the first time in nearly 50 years of racing, he had been stuck trying to blanket Anders and still go for the inside overlap. Marc had the solution from his 470 days in Jamaica. It was simple once you heard it but of course, if it took me another 50 years to see that situation a second time, the solution wouldn't me much good. Imagine my surprise when, the very next morning, we hit a similar situation in our North American championship! I tried Marc's suggestion and it worked perfectly!! Can you guess what his suggestion was? The answer is about halfway down the page at 
http://wayfarer-canada.org/nostalgia/events/event.nostalgia_M-Z/NAC/2002/02NACrace2.html