I'm on a Boat!

DAY 1

About a month ago, my friend Courtney convinced me (quite easily) to take a sailing class with her in July. "We will be learning how to sail our own sailboats!" She said, getting more and more excited. This thought only scared me a little bit, as I thought about manning a whole huge sailboat by myself... I just KNOW I will run it aground, or get tangled in all the ropes, or hit a wave and drop my beer in the water! But then she went on to explain to me that there are different sizes of sail boats, and we would be learning to sail small, single/double person boats. Phew! I'm in!

Last night was our first class. Courtney and I met up with the group at the Willamette Sailing Club, south of downtown on the river (of course). After grabbing a lifejacket, we were all ushered into a floating classroom right off of the dock to learn about what we were going to be doing for the next few weeks. Though I tried to follow along, I found myself starting to space out as the instructors continued to use a bucket-full of words that, beyond starboard and port, I could barely keep up with: tack, jib, windward, beam reach, gybing, boom, luffing, etc. Ahh!

I focused really hard on figuring out what these words meant and their connection to the whole process of sailing, but really the one lesson I took away from the discussion was DON'T SAIL INTO THE WIND. "If you sail into the wind," one instructor explained, "you will get stuck, and you could be stuck there for a long time. There is a way to get out of it, but it's tricky. You can only steer with the rudder when your boat is in motion, and if you sail into the wind, you will stop; your sail will lose the wind and just flutter around... this is what we call luffing." Got it. Stay AWAY from direct wind.

So if you want to sail towards the wind, you have to do this complicated sort of zig-zag line of attack. I think it's called tacking. Even on the powerpoint diagrams, it looked pretty tricky. "You will be able to do all of this when you are done with this class." The instructor assured us. I really hope so. God, I can just see it now: Instructor! I sailed into the wind, like you told me not to! I forgot to zig and zag! Help me! Then I fall into the water. Let's hope not.

After we listened to this lecture, we had to do a swim test. "You will swim from one side of the dock to the other, and when you get to the other side, you have to show us that you can put on a life-jacket in the water. To get your life-jacket, you have to tell a joke." What?! A joke?! I'm horrible at jokes! The instructor is still talking, "...take your shoes..." Oh I remember a joke, What is brown and sticky? A stick! Ha ha ha, that's funny, but what was that one Cassy was telling me?  "...on the dock..." It was such a good joke... Oh! I remember! Yes! "...capsize the boat..." What?!

We all start walking towards the door and someone asks me, "Did you hear what we are supposed to do now?"

"No, I was trying to figure out a joke." I said. Great. I will just follow what everyone else does.

We follow everyone outside to the dock and watch as three people at a time jump into the water and swim the length of the dock, tell some jokes, then put on their life-jackets and get out of the water. Courtney and I jump in together and swim down the dock. "Courtney, you are going to be the butt of my joke." I tell her. "What?" She asks, but it's too late.

"Courtney! Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"I don't know!" she says, swimming beside me.
"To get to the skanky bitches house. Knock knock!" I ask, and she looks confused but says appropriately, "Who's there?"
"It's the chicken."

Ha ha ha! I laugh, she thinks for a second and then laughs, everyone else laughs, and we both get our life jackets. You are welcome, Courtney!

We then walk over to the other dock where a sail boat has been taken out for us to play on. Two people at a time get in the boat, capsize it (lean over the same side and knock it all the way sideways into the water), then get it back upright. One person holds on to the side of the boat as the other one goes around the back and pushes the center-thingy back down into the water, righting the boat and taking the other person with it. Then they go around back and get back in the boat with the help of the other person. Courtney and I do this pretty successfully, and I am surprised that I can push a whole boat back into the water (these boats only weigh 230 pounds). After we are done, we get out and cheer on everyone else while they do the same thing. There are about 12 people in the class: 4 women and 8 men. They all seem pretty laid back and I think we are going to have a lot of fun!

After capsizing our boat, we take it out of the water and the instructors show us how to put up the sails. This is another complicated task of lining up the right side of the sails, pulling on lots of ropes and pulleys and tightening things and knotting things. After we watch the instructors do it once, they have us do it on another boat. As there are 12 of us, I mostly hang back and let the other people take care of it, but the one thing I contributed was to pull up the main sail by a rope. All I could think of was "you can raise MY main sail," and I giggled to myself a little bit and then sincerely hoped that no one would ever use that pick-up line on me.

We eventually, with some help from the instructors, were successful at raising both the sails (the main sail and the jib, the smaller sail). We clapped again, congratulating ourselves, then went back over to the classroom and sat outside on some picnic tables to learn how to tie some knots while a couple people went one at a time with an instructor out into the boats for their first hands-on sailing lesson. All we had to do on the boat was control the jib (the little sail) and make sure we didn't get smacked in the head by the boom (the bottom of the main sail). Look at that! I know some words already.

Too soon, the class was over. Our next class is tomorrow and I am pretty excited! I never thought I'd be taking a sailing class, but you know what, I am young and I am free, and also, why not? You never know when you will need to escape into the ocean from a land threat and have to sail a boat. You also never know when someone will ask you to join a Yacht club. I will be prepared for both.