Sailing is hard.
Left equals port equals red. Right equals starboard equals green. A white light means the other boat is mooning you. It’s all so technical. And that is just the tiniest sliver of information you need to know to sail a boat.
Last Saturday I went sailing on a trimaran, which has a large hull in the center and two smaller ones on either side. Trampoline decking stretches between the hulls and provides additional walking/lounging/flailing areas. Walking on the springy trampoline takes a little getting used to, ergo the flailing, but once I realized it wasn't going to give way due to my vast bulk and fling me into the sound, it wasn't so bad.
I neglected to get a photo of the actual boat I was on, but here are a few from a random website (Farrier Marine Inc) that show the basic structure. The first has all three of its hulls full of water to prove that it won't sink; the second is a big'un, bigger than the boat I was on, but shows a good aerial view.
The weather could not have been more perfect. Sunny, but not too hot. Breezy, but not too windy. Breeze is kinda important when your boat is powered by sails, or so I'm told.
We were eight and three quarters in total: eight adults, one small child (1/2), and one cat (1/4). Spook-the-cat made an unfortunate appearance right before a technical maneuver that involved lots of clanking rigging and flapping of the sails. That was it for Spook sightings until we docked.
If you have never been on a sailboat, all I can say is...go. And if you can do it on a trimaran or catamaran, even better. They are more stable than single hull boats, just as a tricycle is more stable than a bicycle. (Ooh, the sailing gods are gonna get me for that comparison.) They also have a much lower heel angle, which means you don't have to hang on for dear life as the boat tilts at a 45 degree angle because the multi-hull boat will only tilt 12-15 degrees.
I felt so alive out on that tiny boat in the middle of the big, bad ocean. Okay, not the ocean but rather the sound and the channels between islands. It was still big and wet and hawesome*. I realized many things that day:
- Yes, you are still alive even though beloved friends, family, and pets are dropping dead all around you.
- You will likely remain alive for another 40 years or so, fast-moving buses and poisonous reptiles notwithstanding, so get off your ass and leave the house for something besides work you moron.
- Until this weekend, you hadn't met any new people, much less cool new people, for ages. (Refer to the "you moron" part at #2 above.)
- You really enjoy meeting new people. If you just act like a normal person, they won't know you were a painfully shy kid, a bitchy teen, or any of that other stuff from childhood you insist on dragging around with you wherever you go.
I learned lots of cool stuff about sailing, too, but the details escape me and I'd probably get half the terminology wrong anyway. Here is a tip from my hosts Ron and Kelly: if you are serious about sailing, take a class to learn the basics and then start racing. They learned more from racing their boat every week than anything they ever learned in a class.
So to Captain Ron, First Mate Kelly, and First Cat Spook: many thanks for a wonderful adventure, guys. You are H..HAWESOME.
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*If it's better than awesome, it's hawesome...sometimes with two h's. Watch a hilarious vlog on hawesome from the guy who popularized the term. (Note the cow print baby seat cover in the background. You gotta love this guy.)
