Session 1
A lot of my weekend was spent on the hudson river between Tarrytown and Nyack. On Saturday I got set up to crew on George's boat. George is a kind, outgoing, warm guy who recently got into racing. The fleet consists of Lightnings. Lighnings are 16 feet, 3 person sail boats that are designed for racing. They are equipped with a mainsail(center sail), jib(front sail), spinnaker, as well as many ways to tune and set the rigging according to wind, crew weight, current, etc... George is more of a beer in hand, sit back, relax, day sail kinda guy. He seemed to have very scarce knowledge of the rules of racing. For instance, a good start is very important in racing. The goal is to position your boat such that it has decent speed as it crosses the starting line, you're not in anyone's way, no one is taking your wind, and you don't overshoot. When all the boats were clumped together, getting in position for the start, George's boat was half a mile away. George was unaware of the start timing sequence.
Third crew on George's boat was this guy Todd. Todd seemed like a pretty cool guy. Lived in Japan for 12 years. Has his own tutoring company. Interested in sailing. Captain of the boat handles the main sail and steering. One of the crew handles jib, the other handles spinnaker. You don't ever fly both at the same time. George didn't have a spinnaker rigged, so Todd and I were both working the jib. A spinnaker is a very light and large sail that's used to sail the boat down wind. It's a LOT more effective then using the jib down wind. At some point the committee boat (people keeping track of the race) motored up to us and conveyed that no one would get upset if we didn't finish the race, that it's ok.
We did 2 more races in just about that fashion. George told a couple of funny stories about his teaching days. It started to rain and the fleet headed back around 4. As we were getting close to shore, George decided to take down the sails. I was on the docks holding the dock line, Todd and George were taking down the main sail. Peace was broken by creative cursing from George. Dude forgot to tie a stopper knot at the end of his main halyard (rope that hoists the main sail up/down). The halyard went into the mast. This is a real pain in the ass and requires taking the mast down to re-thread. George was very upset with himself, but luckily that didn't stop him from getting the crew a couple of beers and a couple of laughs.
George had another passion - smoking. He rolled about 20 cigarettes, which ran out by the second race. The third race consisted of George taking time off from the helm to roll a cigarette every 4-5 minutes. This is very much against racing strategy, since the skipper has to constantly pay attention to how the boat is moving and responding to wind and make proper adjustments very quickly. All and all, nothing got irrepairably damaged. No one lost an eye. We exchanged numbers and shook hands.
In the evening I went to eat in Lefteris. Then stumbled on a live band playing in a coffee shop in town. The rest of the evening was spent entertaining and getting to know an adorable, adventurous, creative girl in Tarrytown.
Sunday I got set up to crew for Dan. Dan is also a long time sailor but in some ways he was immediately very much different from George but in some ways he was very much the same. Dan fell to sailor's anxiety early in his life. Dan hates making mistakes. Dan takes sailing and racing in particular very seriously. Dan is a thin man probably close to 65 years old. I met Dan at 8:15am. He very thoroughly went over the rigging on his boat, paying close attention to how the spinnaker gets set. That would be my task for the day. Since I have very little experience with the spinnaker on these boats, Dan rightfully was very concerned that I don't mess up at the wrong moment.
These boats are kept on land. The boat club has a crane that fairly easily rases the boat from the trailer and drops the boat in the water. As we did that, my first observation was that the boat was taking on water. Turns out George forgot to close the bailer port(an opening on the bottom of the boat which drains water when the boat is on land and/or when the boat is on water and moving fast). We closed the port. Heard a couple of unpleasant words from Dan, mostly aimed at himself, and got going. Dan knew the start sequence by heart. He knew all the neat tricks of taking a reading of wind before the race starts. He knew how to figure out the best place to position the boat. We had a great start. We were the second boat to the first mark. Then we had some bad luck with the wind going down wind and came in close to last in the finish. The second race was much in the same way. The third crew was this guy Frank. Frank has his own boat, but helps Dan every now and then. Frank had experience racing and had the right laid back personality to balance Dan. Frank raved about the awesome sailing in 1000 islands region on NY state. Might be worth checking that out some time. You can get a boat and sail from island to island. I had fun playing with the jib and setting the spinnaker. Haven't had much experience with flying the spinnaker before. At the end we've had a couple of beers, exchanged numbers and shook hands.
Experience from both days got me thinking... At this point, I feel that the best way for me to progress with sailing is to sail on a boat where I can make my own calls. I can make wrong calls as good as anybody. I don't need to sit on other people's boats and watch them make mistakes, although it's educational. I learn a lot better when I'm responsible myself. There are a multitude of options. The spectrum ranges from 1 person 8 foot racing Laser to ~30 foot cruiser that I can live on. I'm leaning towards getting a 2-3 person dingy that I can sail and race. It shouldn't be very expensive. I would learn a lot if I mix sailing my own boat with crewing for other people. I need to think this out more and do a lot of research, but the sailing bug got deeper into me over the weekend. I also need to look into the possibility of renting boats.
The rest of Sunday was spent driving to and from Brooklyn as well as hanging out with my folks.
Third crew on George's boat was this guy Todd. Todd seemed like a pretty cool guy. Lived in Japan for 12 years. Has his own tutoring company. Interested in sailing. Captain of the boat handles the main sail and steering. One of the crew handles jib, the other handles spinnaker. You don't ever fly both at the same time. George didn't have a spinnaker rigged, so Todd and I were both working the jib. A spinnaker is a very light and large sail that's used to sail the boat down wind. It's a LOT more effective then using the jib down wind. At some point the committee boat (people keeping track of the race) motored up to us and conveyed that no one would get upset if we didn't finish the race, that it's ok.
We did 2 more races in just about that fashion. George told a couple of funny stories about his teaching days. It started to rain and the fleet headed back around 4. As we were getting close to shore, George decided to take down the sails. I was on the docks holding the dock line, Todd and George were taking down the main sail. Peace was broken by creative cursing from George. Dude forgot to tie a stopper knot at the end of his main halyard (rope that hoists the main sail up/down). The halyard went into the mast. This is a real pain in the ass and requires taking the mast down to re-thread. George was very upset with himself, but luckily that didn't stop him from getting the crew a couple of beers and a couple of laughs.
George had another passion - smoking. He rolled about 20 cigarettes, which ran out by the second race. The third race consisted of George taking time off from the helm to roll a cigarette every 4-5 minutes. This is very much against racing strategy, since the skipper has to constantly pay attention to how the boat is moving and responding to wind and make proper adjustments very quickly. All and all, nothing got irrepairably damaged. No one lost an eye. We exchanged numbers and shook hands.
In the evening I went to eat in Lefteris. Then stumbled on a live band playing in a coffee shop in town. The rest of the evening was spent entertaining and getting to know an adorable, adventurous, creative girl in Tarrytown.
Sunday I got set up to crew for Dan. Dan is also a long time sailor but in some ways he was immediately very much different from George but in some ways he was very much the same. Dan fell to sailor's anxiety early in his life. Dan hates making mistakes. Dan takes sailing and racing in particular very seriously. Dan is a thin man probably close to 65 years old. I met Dan at 8:15am. He very thoroughly went over the rigging on his boat, paying close attention to how the spinnaker gets set. That would be my task for the day. Since I have very little experience with the spinnaker on these boats, Dan rightfully was very concerned that I don't mess up at the wrong moment.
These boats are kept on land. The boat club has a crane that fairly easily rases the boat from the trailer and drops the boat in the water. As we did that, my first observation was that the boat was taking on water. Turns out George forgot to close the bailer port(an opening on the bottom of the boat which drains water when the boat is on land and/or when the boat is on water and moving fast). We closed the port. Heard a couple of unpleasant words from Dan, mostly aimed at himself, and got going. Dan knew the start sequence by heart. He knew all the neat tricks of taking a reading of wind before the race starts. He knew how to figure out the best place to position the boat. We had a great start. We were the second boat to the first mark. Then we had some bad luck with the wind going down wind and came in close to last in the finish. The second race was much in the same way. The third crew was this guy Frank. Frank has his own boat, but helps Dan every now and then. Frank had experience racing and had the right laid back personality to balance Dan. Frank raved about the awesome sailing in 1000 islands region on NY state. Might be worth checking that out some time. You can get a boat and sail from island to island. I had fun playing with the jib and setting the spinnaker. Haven't had much experience with flying the spinnaker before. At the end we've had a couple of beers, exchanged numbers and shook hands.
Experience from both days got me thinking... At this point, I feel that the best way for me to progress with sailing is to sail on a boat where I can make my own calls. I can make wrong calls as good as anybody. I don't need to sit on other people's boats and watch them make mistakes, although it's educational. I learn a lot better when I'm responsible myself. There are a multitude of options. The spectrum ranges from 1 person 8 foot racing Laser to ~30 foot cruiser that I can live on. I'm leaning towards getting a 2-3 person dingy that I can sail and race. It shouldn't be very expensive. I would learn a lot if I mix sailing my own boat with crewing for other people. I need to think this out more and do a lot of research, but the sailing bug got deeper into me over the weekend. I also need to look into the possibility of renting boats.
The rest of Sunday was spent driving to and from Brooklyn as well as hanging out with my folks.