Last week we learnt how to rig the boat and get it ready for sailing, you know hoist the main sail and all that. We learnt what everything was called, a bunch of knots and what order we were supposed to use to get the boat rigged and ready to go. Well, that was what we were supposed to learn. But as I've said before I know NOTHING about sailing, so much of what I learnt last week was goobly gook.
I had good intentions of reinforcing my knowledge over the following week by practising tying knots and rigging up our manly junior. Well none of that happened, the week flew by with out me even giving it a second thought. Then I arrived at today, last week's theory was to become this week's practical.
We arrived early and loaded up the boats to take them to the river. The we had to rig these boats based on what we remembered from last week. Luckily it was a team effort and we managed to bumble our way through it. With boats rigged, it was time for a lesson in capsize on the dry land. Ellie chose this time to need a feed. So I headed over to the shade and popped her on the boob and attempted to hear what Chris, our instructor, was saying and watch the actions he was making when demonstrating the technique to right the boat. I think I picked up about every third word and tried to build a general idea from what I thought I saw him doing.
The time came for the lesson to move from dry land to the water. Ellie finished her feed and I re-joined the lesson in full expectation that I would watch and learn from the others who had been present at the demonstration. A reasonable assumption, I thought, but no I was wrong. I was to be the first one (sucker) to be taken out to waist deep water for the capsize. Kind of like being thrown in at the deep end.
We got the boat out to shallow water and tipped it over. I went over the side, thankfully the water was a pleasant temperature. I loosed the sheets, and threw the jib sheet over the boat, then swam, well walked really, around to the hull side of the boat. Grabbed the jib sheet and pulled on it then hoisted myself onto the dagger board to use my body weight as a counter weight to pull the boat over into an upright position. Then I had to get myself back into the boat. It all went pretty smoothly and I was quite proud of myself, it wasn't too hard at all.
Then Chris announced that we had to go further out and do capsize in the deeper water.
What?......No one mentioned that. I thought that we were keeping it in the waist deep water. No wonder everyone back on shore was snickering.
We sailed out to deeper water, capsized the boat and into the drink, we both jumped. Now with nothing to stand on the first issue was to get the jib rope up and over the boat, Not so easy to do when swimming around in the water. It took a few attempts to get the rope to sail up and over the hull. With dagger board in, I swam around to the other side of the hull. This time without the ground for leverage I had to use my feet on the gunelles while pulling on the jib sheet to lower the dagger board enough to climb on top of it. The boat flipped back into position nicely. That was the easy bit. The hard bit was to come, getting back into the boat, with no ground to push off. I have never had the best upper body strength, so I knew that this was going to be a challenge.
The first few attempts were pitiful. I moved closer to the stern and managed to re-capsize the boat back the other way, oops a big fail there. At least it gave the audience some good entertainment and gave me another chance to practice getting the boat back up right again.
With the boat back afloat I still faced the issue of actually getting back into the thing. I was starting to wonder just what I'd do if I couldn't get in. I got myself right back near the stern and hauled myself onto the deck, grabbed one of the foot holds and very unglamourously slithered into the cockpit. Ah I made it aboard, yay. Then I had to help haul Chris aboard.
All aboard and we got to go for a bit of a sail. It was fun and I felt a little bit more like I could understand what was happening. It obviously didn't show, as Chris told me I made a pretty crappy crew member. Ah well, guess I still have a heap more to learn.
Dave took me out again later on in the laser and I even got to use the tiller that time and bring the boat into shore. I liked that, I think I'm getting the hang of the tiller, maybe because that is somewhere where I have had a bit of experience with driving power boats.
This week I AM going to practise my knots in preparation for the next lesson. I look forward to learning more about sailing next week, and NOT capsizing the boat.
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