Truancy

Sailing 101 - Day Six,  Bueller?... Bueller?... Bueller?

Now, lets be clear about this - I didn't miss the class, I wasn't sick, there wasn't a death in the family.  I skipped class completely.   And much like our friend Ferris, the evening involved the somewhat equivalent to a Ferrari.  I guess I have never been one for organized education. I'm a doer and sometimes all those classes just get in the way.  

What bad influence is to blame, you might ask?  You could say... it was another boat.  I know... I know... that's not fair to Chuting Star, to leave her decks for another boat's.  But  sometimes you gotta grab opportunities in life when they're presented, or forever hold your peace.   And this opportunity was just that.  Her name is "Party Girl" and she's a Wavelength 24.  For all you tech geeks you can get her stats here.

Party Girl

Let's back up a bit and I'll explain.  When we first started looking into classes for sailing, the Sailing 101 class was the obvious first step but the next step wasn't so obvious.  We had options - such as buying our own boat and learning through our mistakes, and hoping that capsizing wouldn't be one of them.  Then there were continuing classes of which several in our area would have make a good follow ups to the Sailing 101 class.  But the one constant I heard from most well seasoned sailors was, "If you want to learn how to sail, the fastest way is to join a racing crew."

This is where Adrienne's and my learning processes differ.  I don't just jump into something, especially not feet first.  Nope - it's head first for me in almost anything I set out to do.  So this next step of being on a racing crew had been on my radar and was sure to follow the Sailing 101 class.  With class ending this week, I started looking on the local sailing forum for a crew to join that wanted a total newbie on their boat.  As you can imagine, that might not be the easiest thing to achieve.  

Looking through the messages on the forum, I was in search of something that said "Needing crew, no experience, if you have a pulse you're on"  or, "Wanted, rail meat for next week's race" I came across a couple of those but they were a few days old and had already been filled by the time I responded.  So the only things left were solicitations like this 

Just lost my mid-deck for Memorial Day regatta and need an experienced (not necessarily on an S20) crew member - would love them to join us on Thursday. Please contact me directly at:

and

We've lost our foredeck for the season on Wavelength 24 and need a replacement. Prefer an experienced person but will train an experienced sailor. 

We plan on racing nearly every Thursday until the water level drops too low, and will do regattas.

So, there are club races every Thursday and there are the more serious regional races every so often called regattas.  But the important words in those messages wern't race or regatta.  No, the word that carries the most weight for someone in my position would be "experienced" - of which I have none.  From the little I have gathered about foredeck and mid-deck positions on the boat, the foredeck is the more difficult of the two.  Given those facts, I decided to reply to the foredeck position.

However, I didn't reply immediately to the ad. Nervousness combined with putting myself in the vulnerable position of calling this guy and saying, "Yes, I know your ad says experienced, but you should give me a try.", delayed the call.  It wasn't until the next day about 5 or 6 hours before the race that I called, and did my best to sell my great attributes and why I would be a good crew memeber.  I'm not sure if it was my sales pitch or the fact that he was short of crew just hours before the race, but he said, "Can you come out tonight and we'll give you a try?". Of course I said "Yes!".

I showed up early to familiarize myself with the boat and to meet the rest of the crew.  We went over rigging the boat and talked about what the foredeck position would entail.  Then we set sail for the race course and I got a quick run-down on the basics of sailboat racing. On the race course there must have been 25 or 30 boats sailing back and forth waiting for their groups to start. With all these boats coming and going, to and fro, back and forth, zigzag and crisscross - my job was to hang out on the very very front of the bow and be the eyes for the helmsman, helping him to navigate because of the blind spot created by the headsail.  We managed to avoid running into another boat so I think I passed this stage of the test.  

When it was our turn to start, we sailed as close to the starting line as we could, waiting for the horn signaling we could cross the line.  During this stage of the race my job was to make sure the headsail made it smoothly and quickly from one side of the bow to the other when we turned.  This involved me lying on the bow flat out on my back, feet facing the back of the boat with my head towards the bow, pulling the bottom of the sail towards me and helping it around the mast to the other side of the boat. While I was doing this the boat was changing directions. Some of you might get the implications of this, but what some people might not be aware of is the sharp angle change that happens during this turn.  At times the boat can have enough tilt, or heel as they call it, to get almost one whole side of the boat out of the water and the other side has the edge of the deck rail in the water. When you change directions that angle reverses itself fairly quickly. As you can imagine, staying in one spot while lying on your back can be quite the challenge for me, and quite comical when viewed by the mid-deck crew.

While we didn't win any blue ribbons, the race was a blast and was a great learning experience.  After the race, at the dock, the camaraderie within our boat, as well as with the others around us, was accompanied by a few beers and great conversation. Apparently I passed all the necessary tests, because I was asked to show up next week to crew again.

~J~