Positive or negative?
I received a private message from one of our Facebook fans the other day asking if we could make a recommendation for a place that he could take some lessons in Mexico. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone in that area but I passed along the names of a couple of our friends who run sailing schools here in Grenada and suggested that he contact them for referrals. While I couldn’t directly help him out, the message did get me thinking about how first experiences, in this case specifically relating to boating, may shape the future for us, positively or negatively.
Rebecca’s exposure to sailing came at an early age as her parents were both day sailors, and racers. She confides that she really can’t remember how old she was, perhaps 8 or maybe even younger. Her father, ever the teacher, tried to instruct her on the points of sail and other boat related stuff but at that time, it was over her head (her words). Positive or negative? While she enjoyed her time on the boat, leaning more towards negative in the learning category.
In my particular case, even though I grew up in a town bordering the St. Lawrence River, I never had any boating experiences until adulthood. My first time on an actual sailboat, a 24 footer, was during a day trip with one of my martial arts students, her husband and kids. It was a pleasant day on Lake Ontario, the sun was shining and a decent breeze was blowing. After a short stop for lunch, the Skipper asked me if I’d like to take the tiller on the return trip back. I remember that we were racing along with the spinnaker up and all was well… until the Captain fell overboard, without a life jacket on! Fortunately, his wife, my student, was adept at handing the boat all on her own, and the kids were well trained in MOB procedures. In spite of all that, it still took what I thought to be a huge amount of time to get back to him. That was the first time the difference between a power boat and a sailboat was really driven home to me. Traumatic? If not that, at least memorable! Positive or negative? Again, while the time on the boat was nice, that MOB experience was clearly negative!
Rebecca and I sailing on a Laser in Deep River.
Photo taken by Rebecca’s Dad.
Many years later, a little after we had begun superficially kicking around the idea of heading out cruising, as a birthday present, Rebecca purchased for me an introductory sailing lesson. The two of us, along with an instructor, spent several hours once again out on Lake Ontario. Was the experience a good one? Well, to tell the truth, not really. All I remember from that time on the boat was that it was very complicated. The instructor bombarded us with random info on boat handling, collision regulations, points of sail, weather and so on. As you might imagine, we learned nothing. Positive or negative? Nice day on the water but from a learning perspective, negative.
Somehow undeterred by those previous experiences, Rebecca and I still continued with the idea that we were going to make a sailboat our vehicle for escape. That brings us to the start of this blog which, if you’ve read from the beginning, you already know that story. I can’t help but wonder though that, faced with those not-so-stellar beginnings, how many people would have just said screw it, this boating thing is not for me. I share this only to show that if you have a real desire to do something, just because your first exposure may not have been all that great, you should keep at it.
I had a long and early sailing experience. My father built a cross 18 trimaran and I have great early memories of sitting on the end of a float either buried in the water, or flying high above it, my brother on the other float. He then built a buccaneer 33 (and later modified the design and built another 33 foot tri) which we sailed around the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario, and every summer, the Thousand Islands. I had some negative experiences … Sleeping in a quarter berth while spiders built webs around me…. Masts breaking….an unreliable engine… Mosquitos in Picton Harbour … Several wild storms…
But… The great experiences out weighed the bad… Camping off Camelot island, reading the Art of Coarse Sailing while sailing up long reach… Rowing madly in the dinghy as we followed the boat into Wellers Bay ( we had to get off to lighten the boat and my brother forgot to tie on the tow rope), Drinking pop shoppe while my mom made lunch under way, rafting parties, my brother and I as teenagers taking 24 female European exchange cadets on a day sail (met a lovely British friend), having so many people on for a party that the boat started to sink (yeah, it was funny), and the smell of the marina in Gananoque.
As for learning, I spent a few fun summers taking sailing lessons. My main memory of that was turtling in the mud….
Between the age of 10 and 17 my summers in New Hampshire were filled with days in and on the waters of our lake camp. Summers filled with fishing, canoeing, and ski boats but not even once did I ever step onto a sailboat, not even a sunfish. At the age off 33 I got a job about a mile from that lake helping to build a brand new wood 65′ schooner. The first day of that job, the builder handed me a book to read, “Once Is Enough” by Miles Smeeton. I returned the second day and handed back the book to his surprise. He asked, “didn’t you like it?” I told him, “I stayed up all night reading it, do you have anything else I might want to read?” He then gave me, “Wanderer” by Sterling Hayden. The damage was done, my life took a turn! Buy the end of that first week I found a used beat-up Sea Snark (styrofoam) and stuffed it into the back of my Volkswagen camper so I could take the back road from that boat-shop and drive to that same lake from my childhood, where I taught myself to sail. Within 2 weeks I had bought a wood sailboat that needed new transom, gunwales, and re-caulking that kept me busy for the summer while sailing the little Snark.
About ’92 or 93 my ex and I took a rum cruise one day in St Martin. Big cat, about 30 people and other than the sailing what I remember most was we found a secluded beach, about 100 yards long, picked our spot and lay down. About 15 minutes later another couple showed up and sat directly in front of us. ????
On the sail back from Prickley Pear we were dead into the wind and getting soaked. I decided that I was going to learn to sail.
The next summer I signed up for dinghy lessons at the Kanata Sailing club on the Ottawa River. It was a small co-op club with about 6 Albacores and 3 lasers. They rented space from the Boy Scouts Camp. Half way through the course one of my boat mates got to take a Laser out by himself and immediately got into trouble, flipping it 3x. We sailed over in our Albacore and the instruction asked if he was ok. Sheer panic in his eyes and voice said “No”. The instruction looked at us and said “One of you has to help him”. I jumped in, white shirt (from work) sweater, shell, jeans and sneakers. In May the Ottawa River is cold, really cold. After 5 mins of helping my buddy get upright and into the Laser I swam back to the Albacore. I was so numb that I could not haul myself up. The freeboard may as well have been 6′. The instructor and the other dry guy grabbed my life jacket and hauled me up. I was all smiles even after I learned that jumping in did not count as the “how to right a dinghy”.
The next summer I took Basic Keelboat, again on the Ottawa River sailing in the light winds of July. During the winter I took Coastal Nav and read the brochure about Intermediate Keelboat. I had a choice of Kingston, ON over 2 weekends or a week in the BVIs.
In March, with air miles (Canadian Airlines back then) we flew to USVI and ferried to Tortola a couple of days before our course. That was my first intro to the hospitality of BVI Customs who tore apart my one carry on bag. Searching for guns apparently since we had arrived from the US.
We sailed on an old NorthSouth C&C41 (Marlyn) with Ottawa Sailing and Humber College Sailing providing the young instructor. The week before the kid had been crewing on one of the Canada 1 boats in the SXM Heineken races.
The C&C was like driving an MG. She turned on a dime. Being March we had high winds and sailed reefed the whole week to everywhere except Anegada which was off limits back then. Branson’s island was also off limits as Princess Di was there with her kids and some SAS guys. Years later I saw on TravelTalkonline.com that the C&C broke free one night and was smashed on the rocks.
After that I just crewed with friends in Ottawa until I moved across the street from Queens Quay Sailing on Toronto’s waterfront. For $120 a month I could take out one of their J24s or Sonars for 3 hours a day. I sailed alot. I also crewed during race night and THAT is where I really learned to sail. Those 15-20 minutes of back and forth on the start line and the round of the marks teach you a lot.
In Dec 2006 we chartered with NorthSouth….they were cheap @ $1800 for a 38 Bene. With boats that were old and a spotty reputation, NorthSouth went from 3rd tier charter company to non-existent charter company shortly after
In Aug 2012 I heard about a boat belonging to a long lost friend of my wife. He had left for Anguilla where he was upgrading from chiro to MD. He was in a dispute with the Toronto storage yard, just wanted to get rid of his boat. For what he owed for storage ($800) I took possession of a 1981 Edel 665 (22′) with a 2001 Honda 8HP. Spent about that much fixing her up and splashed May 2013.
I just hauled her 2 days ago after a fabulous 2014.
Next year I will re-paint the hull and add her name… “Seque”…as I move into the next few years of sailing.
At this point I am happy with her size. We could sleep 5 in “camping on water” style but we don’t. I am happy taking her out by myself or with friends. Being able to solo is an advantage that I would lose if I moved up to a bigger boat so she may well be my first and last boat.
I am happy.
Ken brought back some memories; we had both a Sunfish and a Sea Snark available to us at times at our cottage. They were perfect for our small back lake. I spent hours on them until I discovered sailboards (windsurfers) in the early 80’s and we used them for years until the cottage burnt down taking all the sails and masts with it. Loved playing full-contact windsurfing but it was tough on the boards.
All my parents knew about were row boats.
As child I built models that sailed. My designs, nothing fancy, but I learned about weather helm and what made a boat go straight. A positive.
Just out of college, I’d watched the Hobie nationals and decided to rent a sunfish with my Mom when we got home. I little wobbly at first, but we sailed around a nearby island at first and I was feeling pretty good by the end. No one got wet. A positive.
A month later I bought a beach cat. Fortunately, the first few days were light winds and everything worked the way the books said. Gradually I went in more wind. Positive.
A year or so later I got cocky and got demolished by several thunderstorms. Every variation on capsize, pitchpole, and even blown right off the beach. I learned respect. Negative… and positive.
My worst experiencing was sailing the boat off Cape May in offshore force 7-8 conditions, not realizing that the hotels were blocking the wind. Ended up sailing back under jib only, just barely. A real eye opener. Negative. But I learned.
—
Never had lessons. I think, in fact, that I’m a person that learns best by reading, then trying, then reading more, and then repeating. Give me tips while I’m doing something very new, and it can be information overload. In most sports, the best “lessons” I ever got were in the form of advice after I had some level of comfort, when it was no longer information overload.
Mike, this is a great topic! My wife and I spend our weekends boating on our ski boat on our local lakes and when the weather is cooperating, we both love it. We avoid boating in rainy conditions all together, as our boat doesn’t have any place to get out of the weather. Cool weather can be nice so long as you are not doing water sports and are dressed appropriately.
We are trying to plan for sailing lessons. I know I can find something in the great lakes (we are about 2 hrs from Chicago), or even the Chesapeake area (have family there as well) for reasonable cost. I also know that we will both enjoy the time on the water so much more if we would take such a course in the Caribbean that it would be well worth the additional cost.
That is the impression I want to have imprinted in our minds, and to me it’s worth the added cost, and potential delay to get scheduled as getting away from our kids is difficult at their current ages.
My first experience was my high school friend inviting me on his dad’s J-24 for a race at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club. I blew chunks and was miserable.
Ah well, we are sailing to New Zealand this year, so not every adventure is steeped in great beginnings…
Wayne
Apparently. 🙂
Good job!
As I suspected, mostly positive replies. The people who had negative experiences are NOT reading this blog! 🙂