At Key West's Galleon Resort and Marina, this week filled with millions of dollars worth of play toys, our ride is tucked between Glenn Darden's immaculate Swan 42, Hoss, on the one-side, and Hasso Plattner's Farr 40 Morning Glory on the other. Flanking Glory is Phillippe Kahn's Melges 32 Pegasus. In this one 50-foot stretch of dock there are enough hired guns to form a small army (uniformed by SLAM, of course.)

There's plenty of elbow-rubbing opportunities in our sport—but there are few events equal to Key West Race Week in this regard. You can more than knock elbows here—you can share a hose. And with an entire generation of Cup sailors toeing the AC unemployment line, there is no better time to be here amongst them than now. They are literally all here, in such surplus that even supremely talented guys like Morgan Larson are in coaching mode. The best pros are getting in while the getting is good, and the fleet of Farr 40s assembled here will be the toughest racing its seen yet—once we get racing. With no shortage of talent available, and with the Worlds around the corner in Miami, it's all happening for these guys.

But the beauty of being surrounded by such programs is what you learn simply by watching (OK, and a bit of eavesdropping) on a morning of an extended high-wind postponement. These guys have their programs down pat; they get to the boat, it's already prepped to go, there's maybe a bit of tweaking, but on the whole they're just kicking back, waiting for the AP to come down, which is promptly followed by the owner's arrival—let's say in this case, Kahn, who steps aboard, as lines are cast, and off they go with not a single frantic word spoken.

That's Exhibit A. We're Exhibit B: a team collectively thrown together for the first time. At its most seemingly cohesive moments—fleeting as they are—this bunch is happily in a constant state of organized chaos. On this, the morning of our first race day, we're installing a jib pre-feeder to accommodate the brand new roller furling No. 4 headsail that arrived from the loft with horizontal batten pockets (i.e., this jib will now be going up and down…not round and round). The boat's captain disappears to splice J-Locks onto new jib sheets—slippery as all hell. There's a frantic search for the jib inhauler (which we later find as we're casting off the boat's bow line.) There's battens to go into the main—twice. "No not the medium-air battens…take those out….put in the heavy ones." Questions fly at our skipper like arrows lobbied from a Roman phalanx (if you ever get a chance to see the movie "300" you'll know what I'm talking about).

Somehow and someway we get off the dock at 11:30 after the on-shore postponement is dropped. And after a wild, puffy ride to the racecourse under jib and main in 25 to easy 30-knot puffs, we turn upwind for the first time, right into a messy six-foot swell. It's only a matter of minutes before the fittings on the bow pulpit give way (don't forget the pulpit anchors the lifelines.) Two of our crew spend the better part of 20 minutes lashing it to the bow cleat, but no sooner do they finish their bang-up, strap-down job, the race committee pulls the plug. What were once sailable conditions are apparently now too much. It was damn fun while it lasted though.

I'm sure there were a few disappointed crews (no more disappointed than the sailmakers hovering like vultures at the sound of flogging mains), but there were plenty who were happy to have called it day with their toys intact. As for us, there was the call to the local welder, and some minor clean up in order once we hit the dock. The boys on Morning Glory return to their parking spot shortly after us (you should see how well Dean Barker can back a boat into a slip—rock star!) and in a matter of minutes they're wrapped up and ready to roll. It took us what seemed the better part of an hour. But come to think of it, what's the rush anyway? This is Key West after all.