The Sailing Lesson (ASA101)
written by John
(slightly corrected by Rhonda)
Saturday morning at 10 A.M, we met Captain Tom at the gazebo by dock B, in Fishing Bay Harbor Marina . It was a sunny morning, almost warm when the wind was still and when the breeze blew over the fifty degree water, it had a distinct chill in it. He lectured on basic sailing knowledge only stopping for a short lunch break and then we finally headed to the boat. After a little preliminary tweaking on our rigging, mostly for safety, (very educational!) and some talk about dock-lines and tying up, we were off.
At first we only used the main sail, he had us tacking back and forth and getting the hang of handling the rudder and main sheet together. Then we raised the jib sail, and our little boat began to come to life!
Some of you know exactly what I mean by that. The rest of you must simply get on a sailboat some day and see for yourselves.
He guided us systematically through our first reaches, runs, tacks and jibes; telling us how each maneuver worked, showing us what to watch for, teaching us how to judge our performance for ourselves. We practiced in near perfect conditions; good wind, some frisky waves from time to time, and very few other boats to distract us. By the evening we were tired but very satisfied and looking forward to the next day.
Sunday, rested and optimistic, we were ready for our morning lecture by Captain Tom and the test for our ASA 101 certification. We studied through the morning and took our test, the sun was shining and breezes blew this way and that among the wind vanes atop the masts at the marina. I found it hard to pay attention.
After a half-hour lunch break, we returned to get underway and found that a fog had settled on the water! Cool! Walking down to the docks I saw Captain Tom had arrived before us, I was wondering if our sailing would be postponed or what. He smiled, shook his head and hooked a thumb over his shoulder 
at the fog and seemed not to be discouraged at all. He said it was very rare for fog to form in the springtime; warm air over cold water. We went on down to the boat and proceeded to learn more about launching. This time, I hanked on the jib and got the mainsail ready to raise before leaving the quiet water. I was 
learning.
Out in the fog, we raised the sails and became a sailboat again. This time out was a different experience from the sparkling water and brisk wind of the previous day. There was a cool, steady wind and the fog would surround us in a wide private pool about two hundred to two thousand or so feet across. Other boats were not a problem. A sailboat passed quietly under power, and a powerboat not so quietly. There was plenty of time and space for these encounters, but I can see why a major shipping lane could be more dangerous in such a situation, with the big ships that cannot turn or stop easily. We were learning a lot on this trip.
Captain Tom said the conditions were a lot like being at sea; no landmarks to tell you when you were turning, how far to turn, or which way you were going. We had to depend on the wind-vane atop the mast. This was kind of tricky after using landmarks to judge turns and steer straight. I had the advantage of being far sighted. I could see the water at the edge of the fog where the waves made relatively stationary enough patterns to get a visual bearing on. Rhonda was still having difficulty steering the boat in a straight line, even with her glasses on.
We went through several figure 8 rescue drills. Getting better, more or less, each time. After the cushion had been rescued over ten times we seemed to get the hang of it. We knew that we would need lots of practice learning these new skills, but we had been given the really essential basics on a silver platter. Late in the afternoon Captain Tom declared us both sailors 
, saying that we had done very well indeed. He congratulated us for completing the course, getting excellent scores on the written test and doing very well at real life sailing. And would we kindly drop him off at the Marina. We were done and he had some errands to attend to, but the sunset would be a nice thing to watch from the water if we wished to stay out.
I think it took both of us a little while for this to sink in. We had, in fact, been operating the boat all by ourselves with less and less input from our teacher. The last few exercises required barely any talk at all. Sailing him back to the marina was not a problem, we knew how to do it!
So we did.
Monday was our solo sail. We were so tired by Sunday evening that we didn't stay out to see the sunset as he had suggested. We just got ourselves a good dinner
and went to bed! Working on the boat all winter was good exercise, but the last three days had been more activity than we were used to. Now we had only one more day of real challenges to meet. We decided to meet them slowly and carefully.
After a good breakfast, we drove our car and truck around to Gwynn Island. Leaving the truck and trailer at the ramp, we then took some time exploring the island a little before heading back again. A quick stop at the boat supply store, a quick stop for lunch, and then back to the marina. After resting a little time on our boat, preparing ourselves, reviewing and trying to remember everything, we stowed our mooring lines and motored out to SAIL with a little sense of triumph, back to the ramp.
This was a bright and pleasant afternoon. We had missed the strong midday sun on purpose but calculated that we still had plenty of time to make it the short distance to the ramp. The major flaw in our first solo sail was that the wind was coming directly from our destination. Every inch of the way. We did have plenty of time to make it, but because we were not very experienced, we were not very efficient upwind sailors either. We tacked upwind all the way, casually, enjoying the ride, and made it in time to get the boat on the trailer and packed away just at sunset.
Someday we will see a sunset from our boat, with only the sky and sea all around. We will visit places that you can only visit by boat, and we will courageously navigate real difficulties and brag about it later. But I think that this long and busy weekend may stick in our memories better than most of our adventures to come. We learned a lot, and we learned it fast. We did many things that we had never done before and for the most part, we did them well.
If we had been half our age, I think we might have brazened out the learning process and eventually picked up much of what we learned this weekend over the course of many trials and difficulties. We all eventually lose the energy, strength and stamina to survive doing things by trial and error and error and error; but we found that we were lucky enough to have grown smart enough since we were that young, to evade a lot of those problems. We were also lucky enough to have found Captain Tom Landers who is an excellent teacher. So many things we learned from him have the potential to save our lives that I wonder at our own courage to set out to do all of this in the first place.
I hope we never grow smart enough to stop!
