#GoSailing on Bull and Bear
March 21, 2013 § Leave a Comment
A couple years ago I had the pleasure to sail aboard Bull, one of the Sandbagger twins docked in Annapolis and giving folks a taste of fast classic sailing. If you’re there, stop by and ask for a ride. Unforgettable.
This is the 2013 update on Bull and Bear from Molly Winans @Spinsheet, who sits a stone’s throw from the dock and is always in the know.
They were supposed to be on loan for one year. The program has been so successful that it’s been extended. I think we will be on year three. Also, a team of volunteers nearby has been shining them up over the winter. Super dedicated guys who love woodworking and also happen to be volunteers who take kids out. These boats sail like a dream on light air days, which is fantastic for us in summer.
And in an odd stroke of luck, one of my fellow crew-mates was filming on the same day. Yes, I was having a blast trimming main.
Facebook Sailing
March 6, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Seen first in the March 2013 issue of Spinsheet Magazine.
“Thunk… kerplunk.” The sound of a cell phone dropping from a pocket, bouncing on a deck, splashing and sinking into the dark water.
“Awwww #^%$#%.” The sound of the owner of said cell phone. Thinking about lost calls, forgotten numbers, missed texts, and worst of all, the 7 or 8 hours of upcoming frustration sorting out the terms of the next contract with a hungover store clerk or someone in a distant call center.
“Splash, gasp, laugh and holler!” The sounds, a short few hours later, of said cell phone owner, lost phone forgotten for the time being, entering the water to cool off between sailing races.
Have you experienced such a day of loss and recovery? Or witnessed it? It’s a common modern weekend sailing story. Day-to-day disappointment and stress turned to joy in the course of a few sunny hours spent sailing.
The contrast is striking; a lost phone conjures dark feelings, and a summer sail and swim erases them completely. I think it’s evidence of an important sailing storyline.
Let’s explore why it happens.
We’ve been told that the cell phone connects us to something, and while it may seem counter-intuitive, it might also be said that the cell phone is disconnection in the extreme. While we anticipate human contact through it, the contact is, in reality, more absent then present, more fleeting and frustrating than fulfilling. Why do we stare at our phones anticipating tweets in buses or in line at the grocery cashier? Often, I find, I’m tethered to the screen, awaiting seven or eight inconsequential, usually misspelled words. I reply with something equally cryptic (and undoubtedly more flawed grammatically) and then step off the bus or shuffle forward in line. Imagine a future with no eye contact, no complete sentences, where no person can sense a change in the direction of the wind, or where nobody has an outdoor adventure to remember together.
Sailing, on the other hand, is both materially untethered and socially connected at the same time; freeing and encompassing in both large and small bursts.
Fishing versus Sailing
November 1, 2012 § Leave a Comment
My dad isn’t a sailor.
His interest, when I was growing up, was fishing.
We fished every way imaginable. We’d wade into Cedar Creek in search of a hole hiding smallmouth. We’d slide a canoe into Mauthe Lake and drop worms for bluegill. We’d pack the ’74 Dodge Dart, drive north to rent a cottage and an Alumacraft to jig Walleye and hunt the big Muskie on the mighty Flambeau. And we would walk out to the lighthouse at the end of a long rocky break-wall to net smelt or cast for steelhead, depending on the season. When you stand in the shadow of the Port Washington lighthouse (a few blocks from Sailing Magazine’s world headquarters), you are a front row spectator as sailors make way for open water.
Dad thought they were nuts.
Without fail, he’d mumble something like “some of those idiots aren’t coming home. Do they know how dangerous this lake is? It could turn gale in an instant.”
It seemed right, and kinda’ scary to me.
