15 July 2004

Well I have ventured out in to the world of sailing yet again today. In fact I went sailing twice today. The first time was splendid. I started about 1:00 in the afternoon and played out in the lagoon just sailing back and forth. The wind was good, steady at about 12 knots the waves were moderate, just right to make you splash a little every time you go over one, the tide was neither coming nor going so there were no water currents to fight. In general it was a very enjoyable time, and the boat was easy to manage. after about a hour and a half of this, I decided that I should head back in to the marina as I had been invited to come compete in the regatta at 4:30, that and knowing that I have a limit on the amount of sun I can receive in one day, I decided to head back in. now a regatta is a sailboat race for those of you that aren’t familiar with sailing terminology. That would also include me; I had to look the word up to make sure that’s what it actually meant. I can tell you what port, and starboard, and for and aft, and main sail, and jib or keel or centerboard mean but that’s about it. Yes the great black beard of Diego Garcia am I. well now it is very hard to take pictures of oneself while sailing, and quit dangerous for the camera unless it one of those expensive waterproof ones. That is of course not what I have. So baring that I have taken pictures of other people sailing so that you have an idea of what I may look like sailing. More on the regatta later.

This is of course is assembling the boats, there not very big but it’s about all you want for one person. They are also fairly simple it only takes you about ten minutes to put them together.

After you have assembled your boat its time to get underway. This can be a bit tricky as you have to pull the boat into the water, mind you the wind is blowing the whole time, otherwise there wouldn’t be much point to this, but it does make things difficult at first. Once you have the boat out in the water about waist high or so, you have to climb in. that’s always fun as the boat is trying furiously to tip over either on you which is fun, or away from you because the wind is blowing it over. Just to add to this to make it more interesting, you can’t put the center board down in water that is that shallow. So you don’t have the advantage of the stability that it gives you when you’re actually sailing. So here you are trying to climb into a boat that doing its best to tip over, and right now it’s inherently instable anyways. Kind of like trying to climb into a canoe from the side, only it has a sail too. Now you might ask why not point the boat into the wind and then climb in, or why not climb in from the back. Two very good questions. The answer to the first one is of course, well darn it I’m trying to, but ever time I get it pointed into the wind and then try to climb in the wind pushes it around on me. The answer to the second one is pretty close to the first. You simply can not control what the front of the boat does when you’re at the back of it, and to keep it pointed into the wind you have to be at the front, otherwise the wind will just blow it around on you, and then dump itself over. So your stuck trying to climb in from the side. I should probably have a better picture for these troubling times but this will have to do.

Now that you’ve managed to get into the boat you merely have to find the right angle to the wind to get you where you want to go. Much more easily said than done. For instance you can not sail directly into the wind, it just doesn’t work you will go nowhere except maybe backwards, you can sail directly down wind, but that’s rarely where you want to go, and the boat has a trick or two up its sleeve when you try this maneuver. In order to sail down wind you have to let your sail full out. This makes it at a 90 degree angle to the boat, it also makes the boat very heavy on one side as the boom is sticking out on that side, plus all the force of the wind is coming from that sail which is on only one side of the boat, this makes you very much unbalanced. Let’s say now you got yourself balanced, this is a good thing. Now you have to deal with waves rocking you from side to side. So as you can see you’re constantly rebalancing the boat. As it turns our sailing has a lot to do with balance. The easiest and fastest way to sail is at 90 degree angle to the wind. In other words sail sideways to the wind.

Now finally after all this you’re on your way. See sailing isn’t only a lot of fun it also a lot of work.