First time out on a sailboat without a coach or class mates

Saturday, June 25, marks the occasion of my first sail without a person with experience on board.

As anticipated, the most difficult part of the experience was leaving and returning to dock.

My first attempt to back out of the slip was a disaster. After an embarrassingly difficult time finding the mainsail halyard shackle (it turns out it doubles as a boom topping lift), I started the outboard and began to back out. I tillered to starboard to move the stern port, but I had apparently waited too long to begin my turn.

My fear was that I would smack the bow into the the dock (on the starboard side) if I started my turn too early. So I waited until the shroud was lined up with the end of the dock before I pushed the tiller hard to starboard. The boat that was docked behind me grew frighteningly close, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to make it. My father was with us (my wife and two kids, as well), and I asked him (with a no small amount of anxiety in my voice) to gear forward. The boat reversed course and trudged back toward its home slip. I waited a little too long to kill the motor and we slid back in with a thud as the bow bumped the dock.

We tied the boat back down and assessed the mistake. It took me a few minutes to regain my confidence, and we started the motor for a second attempt. This time, I pushed the stern away from the dock so that the boat would start out of the slip angled in the desired direction. In addition, I didn't wait to begin my turn. I had my wife watch the bow and I eased the tiller starboard.

It worked. The boat backed into the center of the channel. My father geared us into forward and we were off! We exited the marina without incident.

We entered the bay at about ten in the morning. The sky was overcast, but the clouds were high and the sun peeked through the gray veil like a cat watches the house from the security of a paper grocery bag. The only problem was that the water was smooth as glass. There wasn't a wave to be seen. The masthead fly bounced without intent. The wind was on vacation.

This is no exaggeration; there simply was no wind. We didn't even bother to raise a sail.

Not one to let small things defeat me, I took the opportunity to teach my wife and kids how to man the helm. By the end of our three hours on the bay, my eight year old was nearly as competent a helmsman as I am (but I guess that's not saying much!). We motored around the bay for hours, each of us taking a turn at the helm and by the end of the day, even my wife, who was very nervous about going out on the water, was confident and wishing the wind would pick up.

It didn't.

We motored back in after about three hours. I was very, very nervous about docking the boat; horrified, truth be told. But somehow I managed to navigate back into the slip without incident (although next time, I'll shut down the engine a little earlier - we came in slightly harder than ideal - but not much). The most frightening moment was during the S-turn into the slip. I had to turn left into the channel, travel about a half a boat length and then make a sharp right turn into the slip. Those final seconds nearly stopped my heart. I feared that I would slam sideways into the boat sharing the slip space, but somehow we slid in perfectly. I was surprised and pleased.

We go out again on July 17.

Sailing club, ASA 103 and ASA 107

So I hesitated and spent the last week considering all options for advancing my sailing adventure.

The sailing club was definitely a smarter choice than laying out cash for a boat and paying for a slip. But which level of membership would be the wisest choice?

Given that one must sign up for a year, and given also that it is unlikely that the benefit of a more expensive membership would outweigh its cost (little sailing in the winter, probably limited sails for the first several months honing my new found skills), I decided to take the entry level membership. The entry level member essentially charters for half price and receives discounts for additional certification classes.

So today, I signed into the club with an entry level membership, and also signed up for ASA 103 and ASA 107 certification classes.

ASA 103 is the Basic Coastal Cruising certification. This certification clears the way for sailing in local and regional waters on engined boats up to 30' in moderate winds and seas.
ASA 107 is the Celestial Navigation course. It's something that's always fascinated me, so I decided that I would finally make an effort at learning to sail like the seafarers of old!

I plan on chartering a 24' Martin when my elderly father arrives in town next week. It will be him, me, my wife and two kids. This will be the first time I've handled a keel boat by myself - and with a crew of complete novices. I'll need all the luck I can get. Mostly I'm nervous about docking, but I'm also a little fearful of potential problems raising and lowering the main. Again, I have very little experience and those that will assist, have none.

Think Keystone Cops meet Popeye the Sailor.

ASA on the water exam - and a change in plans

After a couple of idle days, the wind finally returned.

The ASA Basic Keel Boat exam happened on a blustery Friday evening. It was so windy, in fact, that the instructor would not let us stray far from the marina. As we left the dock, I was heavy with anxiety.

When we got out on the water, despite the gusting wind, my nerves settled and I was able to perform each of the tasks asked of me. I struggled still with the application of the conceptual knowledge to the real-world, but all things considered, I was happy with my performance. Apparently, the instructor was, as well!

The most difficult maneuver for me was the figure eight crew overboard drill. Each of us were asked to do it twice. My first attempt went well. The second, however, was not so nicely executed as the first. I was a little distant from the flagged float as I came in to pick it up, but a quick correction at the last minute saved the day.

Beyond that, I was able to move to all points of sail asked of me. I tacked and jibed correctly and really had a great time on the water.

After achieving my first level of certification, I began rethinking my plans to purchase a boat. After all, I could purchase Gold level membership in the sailing club (run by the ASA instructor) for less than it would cost to pay for mooring for my own boat - and with unlimited access to the club boats. It really didn't make sense to buy the boat and spend all that money on mooring while I learn to sail. Better to save a few dollars and learn on someone else's boat!

The club is a one year commitment. I'm never comfortable with contracts, but I think is just enough time to develop a level of competence and confidence that I need to become comfortable with the idea of and responsibilities associated with ownership of a boat. So I'm thinking on it tonight and will probably sign the contract tomorrow. We'll see. If I'm going to do it, I should do it soon - I will get a 40% rebate on the cost of the 101 course (and discounts on future courses, too). So it just makes good sense.

Sailing School Begins

Sailing Plan Mach I
Those who tell you a photograph doesn't lie are clearly not photographers.

Photoshop and digital photo manipulation notwithstanding, photographers have always understood that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but those thousand words may have been torn from the middle of War and Peace, and without the other four hundred fifty nine thousand words to provide context, the text, while masterfully composed, tells us woefully little about what came before and what occurred after. In other words, a photograph captures only a small slice of reality, not reality itself. What lies beyond frame is as important as that which we have chosen to apply our focus.

So it is with my grand schemes. When I get excited about something, I often set my focus only upon the extraordinary flower while blurring the dung-heap upon which it grows. Now, I may be overly critical in this particular instance, but it is illustrative of how my mind operates, and so, with my selective focus creating a virtual tilt-shift image of my sailing fantasy, the mach 1 version of my plan went into effect.

The plan was extraordinarily simple; I would buy a boat, plunk it in the water and head out to sea.

I started looking at older 27'-36' keel boats, but after seeing a few and actually stepping on board, the arterial collections of lines passing through confusing arrays of blocks and clamps, the enigmatic cables running twenty feet in the air forward and aft, port and starboard, the unknown function of boom-vangs, outhauls and cunninghams, forced me to pause. But it was the fear docking one of these large boats in a sliver of a slip without destroying the neighboring boats or smashing the hull into a pier forced me to the realization that boats of this size may be a little beyond my (total lack of) ability. Further, mooring fees for boats in this size range was cost prohibitive - a little more than I had intended to spend. I haven't mentioned that I remain the primary wage earner and the financial rock upon which my family of four relies. So dropping two-hundred and fifty dollars a month to dock a boat, I decided, wasn't exactly a wise choice. If could find mooring for under two hundred a month, perhaps I could rationalize it, but not a dime more. Ensuring that others are not negatively impacted by one's pursuit of dreams is sometimes a struggle, but if we truly love them, we find a balance.

And so I started looking at boats in the 20-22' range.

At about this time I had put the idea of attending sailing classes on the scales and ultimately decided to pursue ASA certification. After careful consideration, it occurred to me that ASA certification would be the ideal path. First, I could quickly build skills (speed is an imperative to the Aging Mariner), and second, it would make easier for me to charter a boat in the event that I was without my own.

ASA 101 Basic Keel Boat Certification

The local sailing school offered the ASA 101 course in 17 hours over a single weekend. It included a set of online lectures and assigned reading from the ASA publication, Sailing Made Easy. These were to be completed before the long sailing weekend. Although at first I was completely lost, it didn't take long for the foreign language of the sailor to conceptually fall into place. I studied for the written exam like I did during my all too short college career - with ferocity. For four weeks I left work and did little more than read, re-read and watch, re-watch the book and videos for the ASA class. I practiced knots until they were second nature. I built PowerPoint and Captivate presentations that quizzed me on terms and concepts. I was a sailing study machine. I read so much that the eye strain forced me to see an optometrist (which resulted in obtaining my first pair of glasses - geez, I didn't realize that my vision had declined so much!).

The first day of class consumed ten hours on a Saturday, nine of which were on the water. I had no way of knowing how difficult it would be to convert my conceptual knowledge to practice, but to say it was a challenge is an understatement of epic proportions. I could barely apply the stand on/give way rules from the deck of the little 24' boat we had taken out on Commencement Bay. And attempting a Figure Eight Crew Overboard drill was like asking a box of Denny's Kids Menu Crayons to create a Bosch triptych. I was taken off guard by the energy required to trim the sails in even moderate winds, and the extent to which sailing was as much a mental exercise as it was a physical one.

By the end of the day I felt brutalized, emotionally, mentally and physically. Just working up the energy to get from my driveway into the house was like lifting burlap bags full of wet cement. As I laid in my bed that evening, I wondered privately whether this was something I really wanted to pursue.

I woke early Sunday with a renewed spirit. The mental and physical impact of the day before had subsided and I was ready to get out on the water and earn my certs. But the weather had other plans.

Arriving at the sailing school at ten a.m., the world was peculiarly still. The leaves on the trees were motionless. Across the bay, smoke rose vertically from smokestacks. To write the following words seems like an exercise in the obvious, but no sailing would happen that day. However, we were able to complete the written assessment and the knot test. I blew one of the written assessment questions by filling in the F bubble when there were only A, B, C, and D choices. Idiot. I'm still not sure what happened. The other missed question was one I genuinely didn't know, but ninety-eight out of one hundred 'aint so bad. The knots offered no resistance whatsoever. Aced. Done.

Except for the on the water exam.

Aging is for the dead - A Prelude to Sailing

"Whatever you believe about the idea of God, I can assure you of one thing; (s)he is either monumentally inept or sadistically cruel." - Me at some point in time.

If (s)he exists at all.

Aside from everything else that makes absolutely no sense when viewing the world through a filter that alleges divine and infinite love of all creation, that so many of people in this world never have the opportunity to pursue their passions and die having only toiled away their too few years at a job that barely sustains them (while enriching others) is a cosmic crime.

For others, opportunities come truculently late in life, where evidence of our inevitable demise begins revealing itself in our struggling eyesight or increasingly frequent visits to MDs. And invariably at a time when we no longer have the time to pursue them.

That a creator allows this to be, setting up a universe in which a very few enjoy all the good things in life, while the vast majority struggle and suffer, lays threadbare claims of universal love and, to my mind, says that the creator is either indifferent and detached or quite simply depraved.

I'm one of the lucky ones. After forty-seven years on this earth I may finally begin to realize a lifelong passion: sailing. However, this new found opportunity has given rise to an internal conflict. I find myself radicalized by the experience of life and defiant of its inevitabilities. Each morning that I find myself still alive, I challenge the universe to kill me now or, if not, grant me another hour to pursue the subjects of the daydream world that I created toiling my life away for others. As I will explain later, I refuse to waste away. And while my defiance in the sight of the creator is the engine that today, more than anything else (except perhaps for my child) drives me forward, I am also infinitely thankful that I have the new day and the time time and (finally - purely a matter of serendipitous happenstance) the resources to begin chasing in earnest my daydream world.

All my life I've dreamed of the sea and held close to my heart the legendary seafarers of old. During my high school years, I expressed this passion through art. I remember painting in water colors many, many variants of the old square riggers muscling their way through defiant seas. I've dreamt for countless years of the opportunity to sail. But these dreams were confined to my imagination. If a film featured prominently sailing vessels or life at sea, I would place myself at the helm or in the wheelhouse as the boats heeled under the force of the wind and waves, and the sea-spray rushed over the decks. From Captain Ahab to Peter Quint, my heroes, both fictional and real, have most often been men of the sea.

All my life I've wanted to step aboard a sailing ship, sheet in and head for open waters. And for all of my life, the economic and social oscillations and vicissitudes of working-class life have cruelly denied me this opportunity. Until now. I'm forty-seven years old, defiant in the face of time, and little more than a week ago, I finally stepped aboard a sailboat, raised and trimmed the sails and felt the force on the tiller as we tacked into the wind in blustery, if protected, waters. Witness here the birth of great passion. Witness here the rebirth of inspiration in a life otherwise shunned by indifferent Muses.

Not long ago, a medical scare forced my to reassess everything about my life. Thankfully, it was just that - a scare. At least this time. I decided at that point to throw caution to the wind. I spent that long week waiting on the test results living hard - heavy drinking and engaging in other "edgy" behaviors that require no public explanation. If you're going to die, I say flip the universe the one-fingered salute and go down hard and fast. I refuse to die wasting away, covered in bedsores on a sterile hospital bed. To paraphrase Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, "Fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon!" Fuck that shit, in very deed.

It's hard for many of us to accept, but someday, it won't be just a scare. We are all in the same grim parade, marching in lockstep towards a stolid grave. Facing this fact in earnest horrified me and virtually froze me in time. This was the beginning of my reawakening. This was the moment in time where I decided that I would live hard, and make every day a life or death risk. I watched a parent die a slow death at an early age, without having ever experienced their dreams. That won't be me. If I die, it will because my body is suddenly too broken to go on - not due to progressive and painful decomposition brought on by disease. No, my life has just begun. Age be damned, I won't stop until god, the creator, or the universe reaches out and snaps my straining neck. Aging is for the dead.

This is where I meet the mysterious depths. This is where I begin to realize my dreamworld and push my mind and body to the limit in relation to the currents and whitecaps of life whose seraphim feet dance to the call of the gulls. I think of myself as the Aging Mariner and this blog is a chronicle of my reawakening. I'm casting off the albatross of caution and fear.

"All men live enveloped in the whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life." - Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"