On a cool and foggy late-spring day back in 1972, four Cape Cod sailors were sitting around Baxter’s Boathouse when they decided to set out for Nantucket. As often happens in sailing, bets were placed, boasts were made and the leisurely cruise turned into a race.
As the fog socked in somewhere over Nantucket Sound, one of the disoriented sailors uttered the phrase that has now become synonymous with the Memorial Day Weekend race that grew out of that first informal sail: “Where the Figawi?”
Over the next four decades, the race grew by leaps and bounds, to the point where entries are annually cut off around 200, making it one of the largest sanctioned sailboat races on the East Coast.
Excerpt from the I&M website by Joshua Balling, I&M Assistant Editor