At a late-fall fundraiser for Long Island’s Oakcliff Sailing, on the 49th floor of the downtown Nasdaq building in Manhattan, Ethan Johnson, a sailor at Oakcliff, bends the ear of Oakcliff supporter Lec Maj, assessing his interest in sponsoring a team to sail the 2018 Miami to Havana Race. Maj is intrigued, and after reviewing the numbers with Johnson a few months later, he agrees to sponsor a team to do the race and join them on board as a trimmer.
There’s one problem, though. All of Oakcliff’s nine offshore race boats are 1,317 miles north of Miami, perched on stands, slumbering with a dusting of fresh snow on their shrink-wrap covers. All of them but one: Weegie, a Columbia Carbon 32. It’s on a trailer, ready to hit the…