I found this on a blog and thought it needed sharing to remind us of why we enjoy our sport so much.
Why I Love To SailGretchen asks for a post on sailing: how, what, why. I’ll start with why I love it so much. It’s pretty, of course, and racing sailboats is a competitive outlet that I like. And it can be social, which is fun. But I think I would love sailing even if all those things weren’t true.
My favorite part of sailing is how awake and alive and tuned in it makes me. Essentially, making a sailboat go fast requires that you trim the sails so that they have a particular shape and angle in relation to the wind that’s going across them. There are a lot of nuances to the angle and the shape that I could go on and on about — you can adjust the angle and shape with a variety of different controls, that do everything from bending the mast, to flattening the bottom of the sail, to making the sail curve or hook more at its trailing edge or a million zillion other things, that differ depending on the kind of boat you are sailing and the strength of the wind and the size of the waves you’re sailing through. But the wonderful part of all of this is that the thing you are reacting to, the wind, is totally invisible. So you have to figure out how to “see” the wind so you can respond to it right. And for me, that’s what is the most beautiful thing about sailing — it is a discipline that makes you notice the invisible.
So to see the wind you can look at the clouds, you can look at the flagpoles or smokestacks on the shore. I mostly look at the water and the million different ways different kinds of wind (rogue, sporadic, spreading catpaw puffs, or steadily building ocean breezes, or dying light evening wind shifting steadily to the right) manifest on the water. Patterns of ripples, size of waves, whitecaps or no whitecaps, these are the ways I see the wind. And you can feel it, too — on the hairs on the back of your neck, on your face. Being trained to respond to the wind makes you a person who sees and feels and notices more. You are immersed in all the ways something invisible can make itself known. What better pasttime could there be?
The other thing that makes a boat go is the way the hull moves through the water. I don’t want to get into physics here but under every boat is a keel or centerboard that is doing the same kind of thing as the sails. So you have water flow considerations to think about too. Current and the flow of the water under your boat are invisible as well, and you have to notice the heck out of the water — why is that lobster pot leaning in just that kind of way? Because there’s a current pushing your boat and all the water that it’s in with a certain force in a certain direction. You need to know that, because the current varies around the course and if you’re sailing just as fast as someone else and they’re in more current than you, one of you will appear to be going faster. And what’s that strange little vibrating tug on the tiller? Does it mean there’s a big clump of seaweed stuck on your keel or your rudder disrupting the flow of water around the hull? Better get rid of it. Why does the water sound funny, or why are the waves splashing in just that kind of way? Maybe I’m not steering through this the right way. Again, a million little things you have to notice, and it is the process of tuning in to all of them that I love.
Oh, Gretchen, I could go on and on. Because there is the fleet of boats you are racing against, and how you can position your boat to disrupt the flow of wind going to their sails, or how you can make someone turn their boat to avoid hitting you and go in a direction they don’t really want to go in (maybe because over there there is more current, or less wind). There’s the whole chess game aspect of figuring out how to do the tactical things that will put your boat in a better position than everyone else’s boat. And of course there’s all the physical stuff — you might know what you want to do but actually executing good tacks and gybes and putting up and taking down sails quickly, that’s hard, and fun. And you’re in the sun, salty, tired, sunburned, with your friends, and in one of the most beautiful places anywhere, with blue sky and green water and harbor seals swimming by looking at you and islands and ferries? It’s pretty great.
A myth about sailing is that you have to be rich to do it. As the daughter of a sailmaker, I can tell you this: it’s not true. There are so many people who have boats that they can’t sail alone — they’re DYING for someone energetic and enthusiastic to come out with an able body and help them sail their pride and joy. That’s how to get started — find someone who has a boat, and offer to help them sail it. Most boat owners find this a wonderful offer.