Day 1, Clapped in Irons
“What do you mean you’re sailing this afternoon? Hargraves don’t sail.” My brother was incredulous when I told him about this week’s challenge.
“Grandpa sailed,” was my retort. And just like that we were 12 years old again.
Truth is, my grandpa didn’t sail, he yachted. Still does. He also fishes. But sailing? Not exactly in my DNA. Upon accepting this challenge, I was a little unsure that someone could even learn to sail in a week—boats are big, powerful vehicles and there are a lot of parts to remember and move at the same time. And who even knows what “port side” means?
“If you can drive a car, you can sail a boat,” was the comment from a friend from high school. He also happened to win the Heisman Trophy of sailing while at Boston College… so I guess that’s like Celine Dion saying, “Just pull from your diaphragm.”
I showed up late for my first day of lessons at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center and when I snuck into the classroom, there was already a list of foreign vocabulary words on the chalkboard.
“The easiest way to remember that the port side is the left side of the boat is that port has four letters and left has four letters.” Well I guess that answers that question.
Our instructor was an enthusiastic young blonde woman named Jamie who had been sailing all her life and really wanted us to like it. The rest of the class looked like a slice of San Diego—two pairs of guys in tank tops, board shorts and trucker hats, a sour-faced couple on a date, a female med student in her scrubs, and a skinny loner kid who challenged everything our poor instructor tried to say.
She ran through the parts of the boat, the most important of which were the sail; the mast; the boom, which is called such because when it hits you in the head it “goes boom”; the rudder; the tiller (your steering wheel); and the mainsheet (your gas pedal and the rope that controls the sail). She also reminded us that, because sailors are weird, there are no “ropes” in sailing, only “lines”.
I was furiously scribbling words and diagrams on the notepad I’d brought because I was convinced this was somehow going to help me keep everything straight. I was definitely the only person in the class taking notes so every so often I caught Jamie giving me a puzzled look.
When she moved on to discerning the direction of the wind and points of sail (the direction in which your boat is moving), she made it sound easy and that made me nervous.
“The best way to figure out which way the wind is blowing is to look at the ripples on the water because they travel in lateral lines in the same direction the wind is blowing. And the fastest way to travel is on a straight line running parallel to the ripples; this is called a ‘beam reach’.” But what if I don’t want to travel as fast as I can while sailing a boat for the first time?
Answer: you turn toward the wind. But as I would later find out, if you’re not careful and turn too far into it, you end up in what is called the “no go zone” or “irons” and your sail falls flat. Irons and I were about to spend two days getting real acquainted.
After what was, in my opinion, a very brief overview on sailing, we took the classroom to the dock. First, there was a swim test where we had to jump in the freezing cold water and swim from one end to the other. While not the most pleasurable experience, it was funny to watch the sour-faced male try to talk the sour-faced female into getting in the water. Apparently, she thought she could learn to sail without getting her hair wet.
Then we had to set up our boats. We were learning on Sabots, which are about as big as a 26-year-old trucker hat-wearing surfer, and are extremely unstable, so getting into and out of them was a precarious task. Unfortunately, the sour-faced male was about twice the size of a 26-year-old and karma was not on his side.
I grimaced as he swung his beefy tree stumps over the side of the dock and lurched forward, sending three quarters of his boat below water and his rudder floating just out of reach. He gasped and flailed while Jamie tried her best to haul him out, but after a few failed attempts, she called over an Adonis from the Aquatic Center to help her. Sorry bud.
After our boats were set up and we were all nestled safely in the hulls, Jamie instructed us to sail between the two lateral flags in the cove and practice tacking (turning upwind). Once we were comfortable, we could try a jibe or two (turning downwind).
As she went to untie our bowlines and set us free, a mild panic fluttered in my chest—“but I’m not ready! I don’t know what I’m doing! Which side is port?!”
“Don’t worry, if you get going too fast, just let go of the mainsheet.”
She turned my boat to face the open water and when the wind filled my sail, pulling the mainsheet taut, my boat eased away from the dock. I was hesitant at first, but I got a little speed going and my white knuckled grip kept the tiller relatively straight, so I was feeling good. Then I decided to get a little crazy and fall off (turn away from) the wind a little bit. All of a sudden, I felt the power of nature pull my sail and tip my boat, and just as I thought I was going over into the arctic water, I practically threw the mainsheet overboard, let go of the tiller, and lunged for the opposite side of the hull. My boat set into a slow spin and finally stopped with the bow pointed dead center into the wind.
Great. My sail was slack and the hull was bobbing in the current, and there was nothing I could do but throw my tiller to one side and wait until I drifted out of irons. I watched with jealousy as the other members of my class sped along from one side of the cove to the other. After about five minutes, jealousy turned to frustration and I decided I was going to will my boat forward gosh darnit!
With my left hand firmly on the tiller and my right holding the mainsheet close, I positioned my weight forward and opposite the sail and concentrated on the direction of the wind with every ounce of energy. I would feel a slight breeze on my cheek, hear the flutter of the sail, and then try to position the boat to take advantage of it. But I would end up drifting back to the same place. After another ten minutes, I started to get pissed.
Then one of the surfers came speeding my way and with sneer and head nod, he completed a tack around my boat. Really, dude? I got more than mild enjoyment watching him beached and helpless on the far side of the cove later in the afternoon.
I was considering jumping overboard and swimming back to the dock when the wind changed directions a few degrees in my favor and the flutter of my sail finally caught. I quelled the urge to give a victory yelp and concentrated on moving my boat forward.
As I approached the first flag of the course, my mind went into overdrive trying to remember everything I was supposed to do: make sure I’ve got enough momentum, throw the tiller toward the sail, pull in the mainsheet, duck the boom as it switches sides, move to the opposite side of the boat. And because I’m a total spaz, I tried to do everything at once and wound up pulling the boom into the side of my head and turning the tiller directly back into irons.
Sweet. At this point there was nothing I could do but laugh and wait for the short time it took for the wind to give me a third chance. I kept my speed to a minimum and as the afternoon wore on, I settled down enough to make a few successful tacks without getting stuck or bruising my body. I stayed away from jibing, as it requires a quicker and more graceful maneuvering of tiller, mainsheet and body weight, but I figured there was always tomorrow.
By quitting time, my hips were sore, my knees were bruised, and my nerves were a little frayed, but I was excited to come back the next day and try again.
“What do you mean you’re sailing this afternoon? Hargraves don’t sail.” My brother was incredulous when I told him about this week’s challenge.
“Grandpa sailed,” was my retort. And just like that we were 12 years old again.
Truth is, my grandpa didn’t sail, he yachted. Still does. He also fishes. But sailing? Not exactly in my DNA. Upon accepting this challenge, I was a little unsure that someone could even learn to sail in a week—boats are big, powerful vehicles and there are a lot of parts to remember and move at the same time. And who even knows what “port side” means?
“If you can drive a car, you can sail a boat,” was the comment from a friend from high school. He also happened to win the Heisman Trophy of sailing while at Boston College… so I guess that’s like Celine Dion saying, “Just pull from your diaphragm.”
I showed up late for my first day of lessons at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center and when I snuck into the classroom, there was already a list of foreign vocabulary words on the chalkboard.
“The easiest way to remember that the port side is the left side of the boat is that port has four letters and left has four letters.” Well I guess that answers that question.
Our instructor was an enthusiastic young blonde woman named Jamie who had been sailing all her life and really wanted us to like it. The rest of the class looked like a slice of San Diego—two pairs of guys in tank tops, board shorts and trucker hats, a sour-faced couple on a date, a female med student in her scrubs, and a skinny loner kid who challenged everything our poor instructor tried to say.
She ran through the parts of the boat, the most important of which were the sail; the mast; the boom, which is called such because when it hits you in the head it “goes boom”; the rudder; the tiller (your steering wheel); and the mainsheet (your gas pedal and the rope that controls the sail). She also reminded us that, because sailors are weird, there are no “ropes” in sailing, only “lines”.
I was furiously scribbling words and diagrams on the notepad I’d brought because I was convinced this was somehow going to help me keep everything straight. I was definitely the only person in the class taking notes so every so often I caught Jamie giving me a puzzled look.
When she moved on to discerning the direction of the wind and points of sail (the direction in which your boat is moving), she made it sound easy and that made me nervous.
“The best way to figure out which way the wind is blowing is to look at the ripples on the water because they travel in lateral lines in the same direction the wind is blowing. And the fastest way to travel is on a straight line running parallel to the ripples; this is called a ‘beam reach’.” But what if I don’t want to travel as fast as I can while sailing a boat for the first time?
Answer: you turn toward the wind. But as I would later find out, if you’re not careful and turn too far into it, you end up in what is called the “no go zone” or “irons” and your sail falls flat. Irons and I were about to spend two days getting real acquainted.
After what was, in my opinion, a very brief overview on sailing, we took the classroom to the dock. First, there was a swim test where we had to jump in the freezing cold water and swim from one end to the other. While not the most pleasurable experience, it was funny to watch the sour-faced male try to talk the sour-faced female into getting in the water. Apparently, she thought she could learn to sail without getting her hair wet.
Then we had to set up our boats. We were learning on Sabots, which are about as big as a 26-year-old trucker hat-wearing surfer, and are extremely unstable, so getting into and out of them was a precarious task. Unfortunately, the sour-faced male was about twice the size of a 26-year-old and karma was not on his side.
I grimaced as he swung his beefy tree stumps over the side of the dock and lurched forward, sending three quarters of his boat below water and his rudder floating just out of reach. He gasped and flailed while Jamie tried her best to haul him out, but after a few failed attempts, she called over an Adonis from the Aquatic Center to help her. Sorry bud.
After our boats were set up and we were all nestled safely in the hulls, Jamie instructed us to sail between the two lateral flags in the cove and practice tacking (turning upwind). Once we were comfortable, we could try a jibe or two (turning downwind).
As she went to untie our bowlines and set us free, a mild panic fluttered in my chest—“but I’m not ready! I don’t know what I’m doing! Which side is port?!”
“Don’t worry, if you get going too fast, just let go of the mainsheet.”
She turned my boat to face the open water and when the wind filled my sail, pulling the mainsheet taut, my boat eased away from the dock. I was hesitant at first, but I got a little speed going and my white knuckled grip kept the tiller relatively straight, so I was feeling good. Then I decided to get a little crazy and fall off (turn away from) the wind a little bit. All of a sudden, I felt the power of nature pull my sail and tip my boat, and just as I thought I was going over into the arctic water, I practically threw the mainsheet overboard, let go of the tiller, and lunged for the opposite side of the hull. My boat set into a slow spin and finally stopped with the bow pointed dead center into the wind.
Great. My sail was slack and the hull was bobbing in the current, and there was nothing I could do but throw my tiller to one side and wait until I drifted out of irons. I watched with jealousy as the other members of my class sped along from one side of the cove to the other. After about five minutes, jealousy turned to frustration and I decided I was going to will my boat forward gosh darnit!
With my left hand firmly on the tiller and my right holding the mainsheet close, I positioned my weight forward and opposite the sail and concentrated on the direction of the wind with every ounce of energy. I would feel a slight breeze on my cheek, hear the flutter of the sail, and then try to position the boat to take advantage of it. But I would end up drifting back to the same place. After another ten minutes, I started to get pissed.
Then one of the surfers came speeding my way and with sneer and head nod, he completed a tack around my boat. Really, dude? I got more than mild enjoyment watching him beached and helpless on the far side of the cove later in the afternoon.
I was considering jumping overboard and swimming back to the dock when the wind changed directions a few degrees in my favor and the flutter of my sail finally caught. I quelled the urge to give a victory yelp and concentrated on moving my boat forward.
As I approached the first flag of the course, my mind went into overdrive trying to remember everything I was supposed to do: make sure I’ve got enough momentum, throw the tiller toward the sail, pull in the mainsheet, duck the boom as it switches sides, move to the opposite side of the boat. And because I’m a total spaz, I tried to do everything at once and wound up pulling the boom into the side of my head and turning the tiller directly back into irons.
Sweet. At this point there was nothing I could do but laugh and wait for the short time it took for the wind to give me a third chance. I kept my speed to a minimum and as the afternoon wore on, I settled down enough to make a few successful tacks without getting stuck or bruising my body. I stayed away from jibing, as it requires a quicker and more graceful maneuvering of tiller, mainsheet and body weight, but I figured there was always tomorrow.
By quitting time, my hips were sore, my knees were bruised, and my nerves were a little frayed, but I was excited to come back the next day and try again.
A few more lessons and you're good to go. It does take courage and patience to learn how to sail properly.
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