October 16, 2011

My First Time

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This was the first time for both of us.

I didn't know if she was more nervous or I was.

Being the guy, I couldn't admit that, of course. I had to carry my bluff as best I could. And then, there's only so much you can figure out from reading and talk. At some point, you just have to get naked and trust your instincts.

Would I be terrible? Would I be great? Would I fumble clumsily and make a mess of things? I couldn't know, but I did know this was something I had wanted to do for a very long time. And I was with someone who meant a lot to me, and finally, she was saying yes.

But I was soon amazed and delighted to learn that the little Laser performed just as the introduction to sailing book said it would. My wife and I cruised around the little cove for a whole hour without either of us getting dumped in the icy water. The tacks and even the jibes were just like in the book. Pulling in the sheet made the boat take off like a rocket. Turning into the wind slowed us down just as quick.

I had been thinking about sailing ever since that day we got swept out onto the lake and it took me an hour of sweating to paddle our little rubber dinghy back to shore. All around us, there had been jetskis and powerboats zooming around, but that wasn't for me. The cool guys were sailing - getting wherever they wanted to go by their wits and by mastering the forces of nature (oh alright, so I was a naive and romantic idiot back then).

I'd run out and gotten one of those "Yes, Anyone Can Learn to Sail" books and devoured it in a few days. In my typically obsessive way, I memorized all the funny-sounding sailing terms and boat part names, even though I had only vague notions of what any of them were. I studied the theory, learned about Mr. Bernouilli, and, in my head, was rounding up and bearing off and pointing and footing and easing and trimming and tacking and jibing until I couldn't stand it anymore.

Now, here on the water, all of the book's funny little arrows and diagrams were finally making sense. I could feel the power of the sail as the wind caught it just right. The sheet and the tiller were suddenly alive - not just ink drawings on a page. This was a peculiar kind of magic - unlike anything I'd ever felt before. The wind and the water and the boat and I were all part of the same carnival ride. Was the wind steering or was I?

I was dancing a delicious pas de deux with an unseen partner who could toss me over at her whim. I felt like I was somewhere I shouldn't be allowed to be. But I didn't want to leave.

Of course, I didn't realize at the time how much we'd lucked out with a steady, seven-knot breeze - just enough to keep us moving, but not enough to cause any trouble. As I'd discover, there would be plenty of opportunity in the years ahead to learn about trouble.

Way too soon, our rental hour was up. We headed back and sailed the Laser right up onto the beach. For a minute or two, I couldn't catch my breath. I felt like I'd just guided the Space Shuttle home. There was a little buzz in my head - a little glow. What the heck was that, anyway?

What started in a little cove on Lake Tahoe that day, some thirty years ago now, would be something we'd keep for the rest of our lives. I had no idea what doors had just been opened for us, the places they would lead to, or the things they would let us see. But never again would I stand on a shore and wonder what it was like to be 'out there'. Now, I would go and find out for myself.

If you're reading this, you probably already know the seductive draw of sailing - the feeling that as soon as you get back, you're already thinking about the next time.

I started thinking about all of this again the other day while reading a Tillerman post on learning to sail. For most of us, the best way to start out (and the safest) is to join a class and have an expert guide us through the awkward beginnings. But there have always been the adventurous and the crazy among us who prefer reading the theory and trying to figure things out on our own. Takes all kinds, I guess.

No matter how we get started, though, I've always wondered what exactly it is that gets stirred the first time we sail a boat on our own - the first time we feel that delicate balance between tiller and sheet. Why do some of us develop that addiction we can never explain to those who don't? Is every sail a subliminal quest to recapture the initial magic?

Do you remember your first time?

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32 comments:

  1. On a chartered sailboat on a school trip in grade 5. Loved every minute

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  2. Brilliant! My first time was with two (male) friends from school. We were hoping for a very special experience but, truth be told, not very much happened.

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  3. It was dark and very warm. There were a lot of muffled voices.

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  4. My father decided to take advantage of the little marina the Navy had (and still has) on Pearl Harbor and signed the family up for sailing lessons. I was just along for the ride, being very, very young. We started out in Widgeons.

    I was absolutely scared to death of those little boats. Was a little happier when we moved up to Rhodes 19's, which somebody told me couldn't tip over - and tipping over was what I was desperately afraid of.

    Mentioned that to my folks when we went back to the same marina many years later - turned out they had absolutely no clue how frightened I was. Sort of too bad, if they had, maybe we could've just done a capsize drill and then I would've seen that this thing I was SOOOOO scared of wasn't that bad after all.

    Obviously, I got over it eventually anyways. But it's funny that my earliest memories of sailing mostly run in the vein of "abject terror".

    There's a summer rental place up in Norwalk that has Widgeons. Someday I would like to go up there and rent one for a day - just to get re-acquainted with the craft under happier circumstances.

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  5. Looks like the first time for some readers fell short of expectations. Maybe it was too hurried, too frantic, and too sweaty. Maybe it ended too soon. Sailing is something it just takes a while to get right.

    Bonnie, I think we all reach a great divide early in our sailing. Will we tough it out and learn to sail the tippy little boats that most of us start on, or do we wimp out and seek more stable craft?

    I know which way I went, helped a little by some counsel from my wife. There was one day when she started out intending to read a book on the deck of a Laser I was piloting and ended up... well, maybe that's the subject for another blog post.

    Smilicus, good on you for getting such an early start!

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  6. Lovely post, tihi. My dad put me in an Opti when I was seven or nine. Can't really remember; It was a dream come true, since I had watched those little boats from my dads boat since I was like five months old.

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  7. And every so often I'd smell a cigarette and a martini would be spilled on me.

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  8. Thanks, Noodle. I guess the earlier the better. I watch those kids in their Optis and they seem fearless.

    Baydog, I like this serial style of commenting, revealing a bit more of the story with each post. It sounds like you were remarkably committed to learning to sail, with all of those distractions going on around you. Maybe you could post the full story on your blog.

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  9. The second time was one summer when I was in college. I tried doing it by myself but it wasn't very successful. At the time I blamed it on having the wrong equipment.

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  10. Tillerman, you're quite right.

    On some boats, singlehanding can be quite a challenge unless you're suitably equipped, but I'm told it can be just as rewarding as working with crew.

    The marine catalogues seem to carry an endless variety of gadgets to facilitate singlehanding.

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  11. "Will we tough it out and learn to sail the tippy little boats that most of us start on, or do we wimp out and seek more stable craft?"

    Well, I didn't get back in a dinghy until 2006, after five years of working part-time on an 80-foot schooner.

    That's right, I did it for money.

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  12. Well, at least you got back into a dinghy.

    After the incident with the book (OK, I guess I will have to post about that, now), we quickly moved from a rented Laser to a 15-foot daysailer of our own that was more like Pandabonium's Lido 14 - still possible to capsize, but you'd have to try pretty hard to do it.

    Eventually, we wanted to sail longer and farther than our bladders would permit, so we moved on to a boat with fuller, if more boring, accomodation.

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  13. So then you could 'poop' on your boat, as Tillerman puts it. A couple of weeks ago, we were sailing downwind, away from any remotely close boat, and I whizzed over the stern pulpit. It was a great feeling of freedom, and I didn't need to wake my wife up to take the wheel. Sweet dreams boobala.

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  14. The third time I went to a lady who was a professional. We did it successfully and she showed me a lot of good moves and techniques, but our session wasn't really long enough for me to feel confident in doing it again.

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  15. I guess professionals can be helpful if you're going through a difficult period in your sailing.

    Did she suggest any devices for further extending this metaphor?

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  16. Yes, did get the itch for sailing when I was young, but took quite a few years before I sailed again. Lived inland where no one sailed.

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  17. Well, like so many things in my youth, I learned sailing from my big brother. Not to complain, but it was a lot better when I got to go out on my own. I'm sure he felt it was better when he no longer had me tagging along.

    Now, sailing for me is not about trying to recreate the first time. I'd rather think of each sail as the first time. (I forget so much that it might as well be!) ;^)

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  18. After my wife and I had been married for 7 years we still hadn't done it. So we went to a place where professionals taught us how to do it in small groups. After I had done it a few times with one of the professional ladies, I tried doing it with my wife and we had a wonderful time. We did it every day, sometimes twice a day. We even won a prize for the couple who did it the best.

    At last, I thought, now we are all set. But then my wife said she didn't want to do it any more. In spite of the professional ladies teaching us all about safety and the right precautions, my wife alays seemed to be afraid we would have some kind of accident.

    So ever since, for 30 years now, I have been doing it on my own...

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  19. Well, sailing is what you make of it.

    I guess some people enjoy it all by themselves, but, as we mature, most of us like doing it with a partner. Some people even like doing it in groups. They'll all get together once a week. Usually, the same people take the same role every week, but sometimes, for variety, they'll swap.

    Maybe your wife would be happier doing it with you if your equipment were bigger.

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  20. 13 feet isn't big enough?

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  21. How dare you. It's 13 feet 10 inches.

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  22. O'Docker, it's not the size of the equipment, but the skill of the helmsman.

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  23. Why is it the helmsman who always says that, Doc?

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  24. Quite often on my boat, O'Dock, everyone takes the helm at one time or another.

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  25. A shrimp boat outta Biloxi. Prior to the trawler days, the Biloxi schooner was the preferred boat for shrimpers.

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  26. this is hilarious! dock of the double (multi) entendres!

    my first time on a laser, it took on water, I was sinking, got to back to the dock in time to find that the pdf really did not work, took it off, swam and wondered why I got on a boat at all.

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  27. I guess the first time is a shambles for many of us. It's a testament to the strength of the human spirit that we're so determined to get it right.

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  28. Happy Thanksgiving, O Docker. You have much wisdom to share and I am both grateful for your blogging and hopeful for more posts in the future.

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  29. Thanks for the kind words, Panda.

    Rest assured that any more posts will be in the future.

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  30. Yes, I certainly hope so. Otherwise it could get to be like the Further Adventures of Nick Danger .... "Pandabonium was breaking out all around me".. and I might get very confused. That is, more confused than I already am.

    12 Monkeys: There was this guy, and he was always requesting shows that had already played. Yes. No. You have to tell her before. He couldn't quite grasp the idea that the charge nurse couldn't make it be yesterday.

    So, new posts, only in the future, please.

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  31. Well, it's nice to be missed.

    I'm actually working on a post that you have inspired, if I can ever get it written.

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