This weekend I went on a “Start Yachting” course. This should be, as it sounds, a course for people who haven’t done any kind of sailing before to introduce them to the parts of the boat and do a little sailing and all that nice stuff.
WELL.
I’m not going to be able to convey what happened this weekend adequately, so whatever you read, multiply it by a factor of at least 2 in intensity and you might be getting close.
On Friday, the weather forecast for the weekend was pretty much sunny on Saturday and a little rainy for Sunday. Winds were medium. All in all, nothing to worry about although not ideal. Friday night I arrived, met the other students, ate an awful meal in a pub and went to bed on the boat. No one slept very well that night because the wind picked up and things get a little noisy. No matter, we woke up, had breakfast, did a speedy intro to the boat, then sailed out into the harbour to meet Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who was returning from a solo round the world race (he was third which is remarkable but even more remarkable is the fact he’s 68). We came back in and had lunch by which time it was pretty windy. By the time it was time to go, the winds had picked up and were 100% in the wrong direction. There was a coastguard announcement on the radio saying that they’d received a Mayday with “I’m sinking” and then nothing else (a little ominous). We tried to sail for a few hours but the winds had really picked up (gale force 8) and eventually had to motor to the Isle of Wight. It was just plain wet and windy the whole time and there was a whole lot of slipping and sliding and getting chucked about going on. But no huge big deal. Funnily enough, the evening was beautiful and clear.
Waking up Sunday morning it was raining and the wind was light. The weather forecast said there was a gale warning but not for “a few hours”. Suddenly the wind switches direction, almost 180 degrees so again it is completely wrong for us to go back to Gosport. Given that we needed experience sailing, the instructor decided we would put the mainsail up. We went over what everyone was supposed to do and for some strange reason I volunteered to the the one who hoisted the mainsail which means standing next to the mast in a moderately precarious position. Meanwhile, the wind is picking up. So out we motor and do a bit of a turn around into the wind and I start hoisting up the sail. Suddenly all hell breaks loose-the person on the helm (aka the person steering) can’t keep the boat into the wind. The person who is supposed to be taking up my slack isn’t. The winds are really strong and we’re facing in the wrong direction and the boat is doing what boats do and tilting to one side. I’m hanging on to the mast for dear life, but we have to somehow get the mainsail down and secure which is serious hard work–it’s huge and heavy. So the instructor climbs forward and together we try to sqish the thing down, which doesn’t work. The boat is still moving around like a fair ride, the rain is pelting down and yeah, I’m a little worried. She runs back to try to help the person steering the boat-then back to me. We try to feed sail ties through the sail which is almost impossible. The ties are big, the holes are little and the sail is flapping like crazy in the wind. Eventually we get a few through, so the sail is tied sort of 75% down. Throughout that exercise I’m hanging onto whatever I can/bracing my feet on whatever I can to not fall off. Finally I get back to the cockpit, winds are still picking up, it’s raining and we need to get the sail down more which means I need to go back up into my former precarious position. Someone has lost the rest of the sail ties. I’m supposed untie one of the existing ones but it’s knotted. Someone gets a knife the supposedly should help matters, but it doesn’t, I just can’t get it undone. One of the other girls comes up to help and promptly cuts herself so she’s bleeding all over the place. Eventually my instructor returns and while I hold onto the sail as much as I can, she wraps a rope around it. That’s the only time when I whimpered a little–I had no grip with my feet or knees, and I couldn’t really grip with my arms either because the sail was too big for me to wrap around it. Finally the sail is sort of dealt with, but the next three hours we just ended up battling the water. I’ve lost feeling in my fingers and it’s COLD. Looking on the internet the winds were actually up to gale force 9 which is “storm”. The rain was directly on our faces, like needles and it was impossible to look forwards. Eventually we got into port where again surprisingly it was calm and beautiful. I was so knackered I called D to come to the boat to get my bag because I didn’t think I could lift it. My legs look as though I’ve been to war with bumps and bruises and all my muscles ache. The instructor said once we were back that you don’t often get conditions worse than what we’d had.
I have learned one thing about myself. I cannot stand sitting around. So I’m actually glad I was the one holding on for dear life to the mast because I would have hated watching someone else doing that. I’m not sure whether this is necessarily a good character trait or not.
So that was my first weekend sailing. Heh. I honestly cannot believe they even took us out in those conditions, but I also understand it’s a business and they probably couldn’t afford to lose the bookings for the weekend. And I’m still not sure how I feel about it all. On the one hand, it’s kind of cool that no one got hurt and I can tell the story, on the other hand, I think I might be having nightmares about this for a while.
Oh yeah, and I’m going back in July. Let’s hope the weather gods are a little kinder then!!!
