Sometimes you get lucky, but it’s rare that it happens three times in a row all in the same afternoon.

I found myself thinking of that Thursday after placing third in two sailboat races. It wasn’t a stellar performance, and in fact, if the spinnaker hadn’t been knotted up on the final race, Bill Hickey, my steady crew and I might have ended up with second for the evening. But even if we had flown the spinnaker to perfection, there was no way we would catch fleet leader Wiley Crockett.

This is class racing, meaning that all the boats are identical. It’s fun and a real test of not just boat handling, but also of reading how the wind might shift and local knowledge of how to maximize or minimize the pull of the tide and cope with the chop that can put the brakes on boat speed.

On Thursday we had done everything pretty much as we wanted except for the spinnaker, and it wasn’t good enough.

That wasn’t the case several weeks ago, when we didn’t do anything extraordinary and came out winners in each of three races. It was like we couldn’t help but be first.

The first race in that evening’s series was really a gift. Races start at 6:05 p.m., and when the horn sounded only one other Rhodes 19 was on the line. Wiley still hadn’t reached the course, as was the case with three or four others. The committee didn’t dally, and we were on our way to our first win for the season.

The second race was a different story. The competition was there, and Wiley, as he often does, was out in front from the start. There was no hope of catching him, yet we took another first.

We thought we might have it from the first mark in one of those flukes of racing that has happened to many.

Bill couldn’t make it that evening, so Claude Bergeron was crew. Claude is usually out on the course racing in his own boat, but this year, because of work schedule conflicts, he volunteered to fill in as occasional crew on my boat.

Wiley was well ahead as we approached the windward mark, but his course wasn’t making sense.

“I think he’s going to leave it to port,” Claude said. That had been the course on the first race, but the committee changed course and we were to leave the mark to starboard for the second race.

“Don’t you tell him,” Claude said, knowing I was likely to play the role of the friendly competitor as Wiley passed us on the return leg. Claude wasn’t convinced.

“Do that and I’ll never crew for you again,” he said with a grin that had me wondering if this was a bluff.

I didn’t murmur a word as Wiley passed us 60 feet off our port and proceeded to miss the second mark. The race was ours.

Wiley didn’t make the same mistake on the third and final race of the evening. He led from the start, pulling away to leave the rest of the fleet scrapping for second and third. By the last downwind leg, we had managed to hold on to second. Wiley was a good two minutes ahead, his spinnaker full and about to cross the finish line. There was no way we were going to catch him, or so we thought.

And then Wiley came to a stop. The sails were still full. We watched in disbelief as Wiley and his crew fended off the committee boat, a foul. The spinnaker came down. There was a lot of confusion. Still, Wiley hadn’t crossed the line, although it was less than a boat length away. We were catching up, and on reaching the scene the situation became apparent. Wiley had snagged the anchor line to the committee boat, and it was caught between his keel and rudder.

As we arrived, one of Wiley’s crew yanked off the rudder. Now the boat spun around, but still it hadn’t finished. We steered clear and got the horn.

Claude and I choked back our laughter. Wiley had suffered enough humiliation for an evening of “friendly” racing on the bay. Sailing back to the mooring, a beer in hand, we joked about it, actually feeling pretty good having beaten the fleet superstar, albeit not by anything we did on three consecutive races.

And then there was one final episode, a reminder everyone is fallible, even winners.

The Rhodes 19 is a small boat. It doesn’t have an engine. We glided up to the mooring as I have done hundreds of times. Claude grabbed the line and I lowered the main sail. Next thing I knew, Claude was frantically reaching over the side. The mooring line had slipped from his grasp. Now we were adrift.

We looked at one another and started laughing and laughing.

There was only one thing to do: raise the sails again…and, why not, have a second beer.