Sailing

Family Sailing to be precise.  Me, my good wife (as opposed to my bad wife) and eldest daughter have signed up for a 7 week sailing course.  Unfortunately, as the senior member of the family (yes I am the oldest - not just a patriachal position of authority) and a male, the good wife expects me to instantly aquire the skills to sail around the world in a smooth and competant manner whilst she sips champagne and looks glamorous with the wind in her hair pouting on the bow as the sea spray miraculously sprays all around but not on her.

Reality check.  Last weekend was our third week and we covered abandoning ship.  Whilst tacking into the wind, said seafaring captain lost control of the rudder, boat span out of control and tipped precariously catching the captain off guard and unceremoniously being dumped in the drink whilst the sail boat careered away up the river with the crew (No. 1 daughter) still in boat.  Luckily (for me) the boat capsized shortly thereafter and I was able to swim across and rescue No. 1 and right the boat.  However, since then the good wife (GW) has described the incident as Captain abandoning ship and added a few years of training to our timeline for a classic sailing round the world trip.

This week the training module covered advanced topics such as steering without a tiller and towing.  The club does a lot of sail training and said boats are not the highly maintained scarcely used sailing sloops they once were.  They are certainly well loved, but the fixtures and fittings are well worn with numerous bodge jobs from gaffa tape and a piece of old fencing wire to make them servicable.  This week, once again with Dear Old Dad at the helm we tacked again only to find the boat spinning wildly in circles.  Now in the seafaring world it is not the done thing for crew to question the captain.  However, being new to sailing and unfamiliar with etiquette, crew asks what the bloody hell r u doing, before I even work it out myself.

Now when you are tacking, it requires the helsman(or woman) to change sides and steer the boat whilst passing the tiller from hand to hand behind his or her back.  During this time you are waiting for the sail to swing wildly from side to side so all eyes are at the front of the boat to avoid a collision between a fast moving piece of metal that holds the bottom of the sail (known by seafarers as the boom) and the head of helmsman (or woman).

After 3 weeks of practicing this tricky manoevre I thought I had the hang of it and everything was going smoothly.  Thus I couldn't understand why boat was moving in a direction different to the way I was steering with tiller.  As I turned head to look at what was going on it became apparent that bodge job of connecting tiller to rudder had failed, and now I was holding what was no longer a tiller, but a particularly useless piece of wood. The rudder was delighting in its new found freedom and whooping it up performing donuts in the sail boat that I am sure if it was being performed on dry land in a vehicle with smoking tyres would make Jeremy Clarkson proud.

Thank god for the rescue boat.  Another quick bodge job and we where away again.

Luckily for me, my pride was restored later in the day when GW and No. 1 went sailing in same boat later in the day without self.  With a good tidal rain and a stiff easterly breeze, the boat decided it would be funny to perform the same manoeuvre again.  Only this time the girls were whisked away upriver at a rapid rate of knots disappearing behind the she-oaks before the stiffening breeze blew the boat over and deposited girls in the drink.  The rescue boat appeared on the scene and the girls got a speed lesson on towing back up river.

Wonder what techniques we will be learning next week?