Sailing Adventure

I first learned to sail at the Sea Scout Base in Long Beach around the time I was 8 or 9, but I left the hobby dormant for the better part of 2 decades.

I did try to earn my small boat sailing merit badge the year our scout troop went to camp Chawanakee, but while Chawanakee was in many ways a much nicer facility than Tahquitz, their classes were not nearly as good. Any class I took at Tahquitz the counselor worked with you bit by bit until you understood and had the necessary skills. At Chawanakee they mostly told you to go read the book and come back when you were ready to pass off. OK, so maybe it was my fault or the merit badges I attempted, but I earned like 5 badges each year year I went to Tahquitz and none at Chawanakee. So needless to say, I didn't get the small boat sailing merit badge. I'm not certain I even made it out on the water in a sail boat.

I finally renewed the hobby with several classes at UCLA's Marine Aquatic Center (MAC). Since then I've enjoyed getting out from time to time. My father in law even gave me his old boat so I have one of my own to get out in from time to time.

However, in all of this, I've always wanted to really get in a sail boat and go somewhere. In my little 14 footer, just getting across the harbor is a labor, but last weekend my friend Andy Horning invited me to crew for him on his Hunter 40 as we raced to Catalina Island.

It was actually part of an 11 race series including 5 races to the island, 5 races back, and one race there, around the island, and back. The short version of the story is that outside of sex, this was probably the most fun I've had in the last 20 years.

The race over started with decent if not terrific wind, but it never filled in acording to its usual pattern. Luckily we ended up all the way on the left side of the course and the strange wind filled in from there first. After a prolonged lull the wind finally filled in coming from the mainland (exactly where it never comes from) that blew us in to the finish line. We actually won that race (at least within our class). It was a blast.

That evening we moored outside Avalon Harbor and went on shore for dinner and a movie. There is only one theater on the island, but lucky for me it was showing the new Star Trek. (Totally awsome, but that is for another post.)

The night was pretty calm, but being outside the harbor the boat still rocked quite a bit. I had hoped to sleep deep and long, but ended up waking up fairly bright and early after having spent the night in more of a dreaming wakefulness than true sleep.

The next morning after a hearty breakfast of oatmeal we headed back to the starting line for the race back. This time the starting wind was almost non-existant. For the first 2 1/2 hours we drifted at speeds never more than 2 knots. Andy is a talented skipper and managed to squeeze every bit out of the boat, but we were still probably less than 5 miles from the island. Then rather suddenly the wind filled in and we were broad reaching at 9-10 knots for the next 2 hours. (Now that is only about 10 mph, but on a boat it is really fast and exciting.) The pole to put up the spinaker (the big parachute like sail) wasn't working right so we were not able to fly it. That may be for the best, with only two of us it would have been hard to deal with, but it might have given us another knot of speed which may have been enought to win. Still I got to stear most of the way in while Andy navigated and kept the sails trimmed.

We ended up taking 3rd in the race back (there were about 13 boats in our class). That puts us in a very competitive 2nd place for the series. I'm hoping he asks me to crew for him again as the series continues. More to come.