Well, I took a “Learn to Sail in a Weekend” course at Puget Sound Sailing Institute and earned my American Sailing Association Basic Keelboat Certification -- woo hoo! Sorry, no pictures. It was a freakin’ ugly boat anyway. You know what I mean – fiberglass!
The course was a lot like taking driver's ed in high school. Remember sitting in the back seat during the lesson while the girl next to you fell asleep with her legs splayed apart (was she really asleep or offering an invitation?) When the sun came out I could have fallen asleep myself as the others practiced jibes. Unlike kayaking, there is not a lot of physical activity involved. By the way, my most memorable moment in driver’s ed was accidentally turning off the road and hitting the curb as the windshield washer and wiper inexplicably turned on.
I’m very good at taking tests, especially the ones where you have to fill in the little ovals with a Number 2 pencil. The practical exam was a lot like taking ACLS: the trick is to give all your commands on the water with conviction, and state what you are doing so the examiner knows what you are thinking. The whole point of getting this certification is that now I can charter a little sailboat through Puget Sound Sailing for daytrips.
My fellow students this weekend included a couple planning to retire and cruise the Caribbean and a retired woman who failed the test last October. Her husband bought a sailboat last year, without ever having sailed before!
One thing I noticed is that the other students kept looking up at the masthead fly to determine what point of sail they were on and where the wind was coming from and this tended to confuse them. I was tempted to say, "Stop looking up there!" Just feel the wind on your face and you can tell where the wind is coming from. It's easy!
Also it seems like half of learning to sail is learning the language, and some of them didn’t quite get it:
“So we're on a starboard attack, and they’re on a port attack, so we have the right of way.”
“We were on a close-haul, but now we’re in the no-fly-zone”
How did military terminology suddenly infiltrate sailing language anyway? Someone obviously has been spending way too much time watching the Fox News Network!