I Survived!
Listening to: Ring Ring Ring - De La Soul
My Easter was spent learning
how to sail (along with Jeff). The Royal
Port Nicholson Yacht Club has a great little sailing
academy. Every day we got out on the water and were able to get hands on experience
in most of the major aspects of yachting. The yachts used for training are 8.2 metre
keel boats that are very responsive (if a tad crowded with eight bodies on board)
and evidently close to unsinkable.
The first
day involved a “white knuckle” (for a newbie who hadn’t quite grasped
the physics of yachts) trip up to Somes
Island and back. A one metre swell combined with thirty knot winds was enough
to scare bejeezus out of me, but it was also enough to show me that the limits of
the boat were far beyond what I thought. It turns out you had to try very very
hard to capsize the beast (I think the easiest was to do that would’ve been to unbolt
the keel). Added to this was the fact that the wet weather gear was spectacular, keeping
me dry even after a continual dosing of oddly blood tasting sea water. Immanent death
has never been so comfortable. Peace with God or not… I was not going to die that
day. All of these things I registered as I clung to the lifeline… but as we all
know, registers are storage elements and not processing units. My poor little reptilian
brainstem was mewling and the mammalian wrapping was amping on all sorts of adrenalin
junk - a combination I highly recommend!
By the fourth day I (and most of the others on the course) were comfortable and confident
on the boat and were tooling around the harbour with few errors.
Normally the course is done over a four week period rather than the four day
exercise I signed up for. Given how tired and sore I am I think the 4 week approach
might be better. The tiredness was the real surprise… I am still bone tired and
my whole body hurts. I never realised the amount of effort required to keep yourself
working on a rocking, sometimes slippery, surface.
Why did I do it? Because I could. It cost $400 and it turned out to be money very
well spent. Sailing has been one of those “wouldn’t it be nice” type things.
Generally my enthusiasm for it coincides with Americas Cup regattas and then tails
off completely as the racing ends. An opportunity came up to do it and so I jumped
at it. I really recommend it (if you live in Welly I recommend that you check out
the Sailing Academy - they are brilliant)… At the very least your soft, little,
office-worker paws will begin to feel more like ruffty, tuffty, man-hands.
