An hour later, we were all on the


water frenetically zipping around the starting line buoys like electrons around the nuclei of an oxygen molecule. It seemed only a moment had passed before the final blue flag snapped to attention, the horn blared across the water announcing the start and the committee called, “All clear!” The fleet immediately spilled over the line to windward like goslings, under the protective gaze of Wayne and the Harbor Master, who followed their flock slowly in the committee boat. Within the first two minutes of the


race, as the fleet slowly began to pull away from me, it became abundantly clear that most of the dinghies had much better boat speed than I did. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Something was terribly wrong as my boat and I were so obviously fast when we were sailing alone! My nearest competitor turned out to be a 10-year- old girl in one of the Sabots who began to show me her transom, too, as we all beat up the main channel of the marina. Soon, the leaders were rounding the windward mark and sailing past me one by one on their run home. The girl rounded the mark at least three minutes ahead of me and then sailed by toward the finish, her eyes riveted to her main, a perfect picture of concentration. Finally, I was around, too, but dead last by quite a margin. I began to “ooch” her in one last, desperate attempt to salvage a mote of self respect in the face of the unfolding debacle, but to no avail. The entire fleet had done a “horizon job” on me. I finished 15 minutes after the leader, 5 minutes after the girl, and only 10 seconds before the committee boat. I did, however, get a beep of the horn from the race committee telling me I had finished the race in good standing. I went to the awards ceremony an hour later, watched the first three receive their trophies, and, with gritted teeth, congratulated them on their fine performances. Clearly, there was more to this racing thing than met the eye. Shortly after the race, Wayne


finally located a used spruce mast and I bought it for $25—broke once again. I transferred the sail track, rove the halyard, stepped the new mast and raised the main. Her sail plan was finally in perfect proportion with her hull, her bright work gleamed, and her


bronze fittings were beautiful. She was no longer a small soiled dove of the sea, but now the proper young lady I had seen in my mind’s eye the day that I bought her two months before. I sailed almost every day the


remaining weeks of my summer vacation. I would most often tack south to the windward end of the marina near the jetties forming the harbor’s mouth, then bear off westerly on a beam reach up one of the canals now bare but soon destined for waterfront homes, then reach back to the jetties and finally run north with the wind behind me the entire length of the marina. I became so comfortable with that run I would lay on her bottom gazing up at the sail as the tops of the pilings at the ends of docks to port ticked off our progress to the lee shore of the gas dock. Every few minutes, I would raise my head to make sure no collision was imminent, then settle back down in her bilge, the burbling hiss of the sea round her hull our constant melody. Like Ishmael’s mast-head, my gunwale-framed sky easily bred reverie and she became my nautical dream machine transcending both time and space. As one warm tawny day led into the next, she would take me with Cook to Tahiti for the transit of Venus, with Hornblower to battle the perfidious French, and with Slocum on Spray through the Straits of Magellan, outfoxing the natives with tacks on the deck. We were now bound forever both body and soul. Our idyll ended with the start of


the new school year and my entry into junior high school. My school activities, the shortening days and my paper route confined my sailing to occasional weekends through the fall, and with arrival of the cold winter rains, I finally took her out of the water and brought her home. Early the following spring, my dad was transferred and our family moved to Portland, Oregon. She came with me, of course, where the next chapter in my sailing life was about to begin. Over the course of that wonderful summer, when she had taken most of my time and all of my money, had shown me my limitations and how much I had yet to learn, she had also given me moments of pure bliss and led me into my life-long love affair with sailboats and the sea.


48°N 48° NORTH, SEPTEMBER 2011 PAGE 41


multihulls classic sails offshore spec


load path one design


Rush Sails Your Northwest Neil Pryde Sails Agent Scott Rush


206-719-8436 rushsails@aol.com


Local Service Global Reputation


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106