Last year I took up sailing as a hobby. The slower pace appeals to me, life has seemed a bit to hectic lately, and the last couple years have been particularly busy. I purchased a small 14′ sunfish sailboat from the 1970s last year that was a project boat and restored it. I also sailed with a friend on his 26′ Mirage during the summer/fall of last year. We thought we would start racing that boat this year but decided we needed more experience and found a boat that needed crew for this year.
This morning we left the slip around 9:30 and motored out the channel into Lake Huron under grey and threatening skies. The rain gave us a thorough soaking but it didn’t spoil the day at all and we all came prepared with rain gear. We had a couple complications with the main sail slipping out of it’s track as it was being raised and with the wind gusting between 15 and 25 knots we needed a reef in the main before getting started.
Once the race was underway I quickly learned that while sailing is “slower” racing sailboats isn’t slow at all. The changes from one tack to another need to happen very quickly and smoothly. Something that we, a very green crew, need to improve on.
The races are setup to be just a bit under 1 hour long and with the stronger winds today was closer to 40 minutes. There are 5 buoys permanently set in the lake that are used for the clubs regular races and we visited all of them today over the course of the 3 races. As a relatively new sailer it was quite exciting to see the toe rail in the water as we heeled over and headed for the next mark. Sometimes the boats get quite close during the race and I was glad to be crew on an experienced boat just then.
Coming up alongside a couple other competitors.
Close racing…
Pulling away…
The day was a real eye opener. I have so much to learn but it was a good start. We finished in either 3rd or 2nd today but by the time the third race was over we were starting to feel like we were able to make the transition from port to starboard tack with some speed and coordination. Next time will be better.
Thankful for a patient captain and looking forward to the next opportunity to try again.
