Learn to Sail
I wasn’t planning to race sail boats competitively this summer.
Last summer with two hockey teams, wakeboarding, biking and sailing, life was just too hectic. I vowed not to do it again. Needless to say I couldn’t say no to either hockey team, still own a wakeboard boat, bought two bikes and one night decided to fill in one night on a J24. Turns out no one on the J24 had raced J24s before and some had no sailing experience. They originally were just out for a good time but after a few good races the skipper got competitive. With some experience I was a welcome addition to the crew. So first came a new set of sails and next he brought out Paul, an expert to coach us. Paul is currently a North Sails consultant and previously designed keels for ten years for America’s Cup boats. Racing with him the last two Tuesdays has been amazing. I know now the mechanics of trimming jib and spin on a J24. My execution has also gotten much better. And tonight, with Paul on the helm (since our skipper was out of town), it was incredible to set beside him and listen to him explain everything that was going on around the race course. Of course, the stream of information was never ending and quite overwhelming. And so while I’ve been sailing quite awhile, I realize it will be many many years before I begin to fully understand just how the game is won.
Once again, eating my heart out.
[…] Growing up I always loved the day we put our boat (C&C 25) in the water in the water for the first time. There was the long car ride over to Northern Harbour with a stop at Canadian Tire along the way. In later years, maybe a stop at Subway to grab some food. Then we’d have to find the boat since it invariably got moved from the location where we ended putting it away the previous fall. Once we found it we’d crack it open and start working. Without a doubt while my dad was busy working on the more technical things we the kids would have to clean and wax the bottom (first we’d have to go steal someone’s ladder since we never had our own. we also would have to haul the water from seemingly very far away). It was definitely the worst part of the day (the best part being eating licorice on the boat once it was in the water and headed to Echo Bay). Fast forward a whole bunch of years and I’m now crewing on a serious racing boat. We even bring in top coaches to help us improve our game. Turns out one of the things the winners do is clean their boats before every race. Now since our boats are not dry docked this means that yes, someone has to go swimming. This week was our first week getting on top of this detail and I drew the short stick and spent fifteen minutes diving under the boat with a sponge and rubbing off the growth from the last two weeks (we had a week off because of July 4th). Plus it wasn’t even hot and sunny. Not a lengthy of a job as cleaning and waxing a dry docked C&C 25 but still, it’s kinda freaky being four feet underwater on a dark cloudy day :). July 11th 2006 Posted to Sailing […]