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Jun 22, 2008

Learning to Sail

Wow, I just finished the MIT Learn-to-Sail class, which is awesome. Nice day outside, and not too sunny so you don’t get baked on the Charles River. For those who don’t know, the class basically consists of volunteers helping newbies learn the sailing pavilion logistics and sailing techniques, and after today, I can go out onto the Charles (alone or with a partner) anytime I want (for free)!

The class is well-taught - they stay away from buzzwords as much as possible so the whole experience does not seem as daunting. We learn a bit about rigging the boat, watch the volunteers show us the right way to steer the boat and trim the sail (adjust the sail so it not too slack or too taut), and then get an entire hour or so to sail with a partner, switching between being skipper (steering) and crew (trimming). Lucky for us (or unlucky depending how you see it), the wind today was quite strong - MIT sailing website says 16 mph, and weather.com says 20 mph with 25 mph gusts. I had a tough time getting the boat to go perpendicular to the wind (I was never good at figuring out which direction I should turn to be oriented the right way) - at one point, the volunteers on motorboats drove by and were like “Turn. Turn. The other way - you’re going into the wind”. To give you an idea of how terrible I am at this, I saw numerous boats speed by, and even with the high wind, I had trouble picking up speed. Otherwise, I also tacked a few times (turned the boat from facing one way to into the wind to facing the other way) and got okay at it by the end, I think. My partner and I did a decent job keeping the boat balanced, but I think that was partly because we were going so slow…

The most exciting thing came after my partner and I switched jobs. First off, we had a tough time figuring out even how to do the switch while keeping the boat balanced. Then, at the first tack my partner did, I remember seeing the boat tilt on my side and … capsize. (We tried figuring out what went wrong once we got back on the dock - he says he might have kept the rudder turned the wrong way, I forgot to let go of the sail once I saw the boat tilting.) Neither of us managed to prevent the boat from flipping over all the way (rather than just on the side), and somehow, I ended up in that little air pocket under the overturned hull. Let me just say, trying to go from the air pocket to the open air while wearing a life jacket was not fun - I didn’t hit my head or anything but fighting to go under while the life jacket keeps you up is not easy. My partner told me he got a bit scared when he did not see me since he managed to be on the outside of the capsized boat. After I got my feet untangled from all the boat lines (again somewhat annoying), we waited a bit until the very kind volunteers came by in their motor boat and helped us out. (The Charles was actually not too cold today, and the staff told us it is not as dirty as it used to be, which is a plus, I think.) They towed us to shore, where we bailed out some water (we had to get new jugs since our original ones are now lost in the Charles) and then tugged the boat onto the dock. Looking out into the water, I saw we were not the only boat that capsized (yay for my self-confidence?), and the staff later told us that today’s wind conditions plus the Charles River are particularly hard to learn on - supposedly, we had a record for the number of capsized boats in a learn-to-sail class.

Anyway, after the rest of the boats either got towed to the dock or managed to land (and after some odd rain that lasted all of about two minutes), we unrigged the boats (including me getting some weird grime on my fingers, compliments of the river I suspect), hosed off all the sails on capsized boats, and I made it back to my room and took a nice long shower to get the lovely Charles River off of me. Like I said, though, sailing was definitely worth it, and unlike my perpetual commitment to go to the gym (which is almost never fulfilled), I think I will go sailing, and hopefully by the time I graduate, I will become at least a somewhat competent sailor.

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A Response To This Entry:

    That sounds so cool. Too bad I can’t swim =(

    Posted by: Jennifer on July 11th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

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