The ol’ J/24 Crack of Noon doesn’t leave home often. Its longtime caretaker, Ian Scott, is a busy guy in the summertime, bottling and delivering crisp, clean natural spring water to thirsty and demanding customers. Come June, the rest of his aging crew are busy too, yours truly included, with all the usual excuses. But we show up to race on Thursday nights, as we have for decades, because by 5 o’clock our skipper has the rig tuned, the beer on ice, and the sails on deck. You could say we’re Pavlovian to the sound of ice cubes tumbling onto cans in a cooler.
While the competition and fleet size here in Newport, Rhode Island, is a shadow of its former glory, 10 boats regularly show up, so it’s still…