Tacky Weekend

Today I ended up in a sailboat race. I was 1st mate on a Snipe class boat with a guy named Ian at the rudder. There were 3 classes of boats running the coarse: the snipes, the thistles, and one other I forget its name. The Snipe Class is a small sailboat, maybe 15ft long (should look this up) with a two man crew. We had to do two laps on the course, which was just two buoys placed in Lake Allatoona within view of the Atlanta Yacht Club. It took about an hour to run the race but beforehand we were on the water for some time because Ian was showing me how all the parts of the boat worked, talking strategy, terminology, and all that stuff. In the end we placed 3rd (I think) out of 6 or 7 boats which I consider ok but Ian had said beforehand that second wasn't good enough and he sails to win(d). With better strategy and not fumbling the jib as I did, we might have done better, especially at the very end as we were narrowly defeated by one of the other boats at the finish line.


Not my picture but this is the class of boat we raced.

So you're probably wondering how a landlubber like myself ended up in a sailboat race. I had originally expressed an interest in a sailing class at the Atlanta Yacht Club but they were all full. Instead Peggy Davis, the lady that runs the fleet, told me to come out to the club on Saturday and look around, meet some people, and see what sailboat racing is all about. It so happens that crew is in demand. Most of the avid sailors are skippers with their own boats and so they try and get whoever they can (their wives, their kids, somebody else's kids, anybody) to crew because they can't sail the boat alone. Ian needed crew and agreed to let me manage the jib and give me a bit of education in sailing. It's worked out well as crewing is free, saving me money on the class I would have paid for, at least for now. I'm signed up for crewing whenever so hopefully I will get to sail again soon with a different skipper to meet new people and learn different aspects of sailing. Why? Why not. Plus Kishan has this crazy idea of sailing from Houston to Charleston. Houston to Charleston! Is that even possible?! Kishan, reel it in a little will ya?! (But I'm up for it).