The novelty of a first sail is a source of joy
Issue 116: Sept/Oct 2017
Avital Keeley was 13 last summer when she spent a couple of days as a guest of Good Old Boat founders, Jerry Powlas and I, aboard our C&C 30, Mystic. As a family friend, Avital had been hearing about Mystic for many years, but this was her first time on board. Her smiles brightened an otherwise gray day. –Karen Larson
Pouring rain, flowers in my hair. My kind of day! But we didn’t drive five hours from Minneapolis to walk around in the rain in the small town of Bayfield, Wisconsin. We came to sail. To sail on what, to me, was a legend, a boat I was afraid I might never see in person. But when the rain cleared up enough that it was decided we would head down to the docks, there sat Mystic.
My favorite books of all time, the Bloody Jack Adventures series, are all about sailing. Now, standing between expert sailors, Mystic’s owners, I felt obliged to reveal that all I knew about sailboats was the little I’d picked up from a fiction series based in 1801. Well, that plus some other nautical knowledge, such as the fact that one shouldn’t stand up in a canoe. Also, I had committed to memory almost every known fact about the Titanic. When I got a chance, I confessed to Karen my mixed feelings about being a newbie aboard. Jokingly, of course.
Unless my hands are busy, you can bet they’ll be somewhere on my special anchor necklace, a gift from my sister. It’s an anchor because of those books. This was the only valuable thing I dared bring aboard. I was definitely not going to leave it behind on a sailing trip.
I was seated in the cockpit and we had just gotten out of the marina and onto the great Lake Superior. The wonderful wind and the beautiful bouncing on the small waves was enough to rock everything out of me but the smiles. Then Jerry said to Karen, “Why don’t you and Avital raise the main?” My heart leapt and, together, Karen and I raised the mainsail (one of the few acts on a sailboat described using straightforward terms).
Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask if I could steer for a bit. Boy, what a treat! I sailed Mystic around in the West Channel, even across a sandbar just off a point where I had to pay attention to the depth! We reached a high speed of 4.5 knots and a depth of 101 feet. Jerry taught me how to open the furled jib. Then came a tack and a jibe (I thought he said “attack” and guessed the name came from wartime).
Jibe, jib, navigation, watch the wind! Heeling, stay on course, and watch the boom! I not only learned a new knot, but I tied it over and over, pretty successfully, if I may say.
The wind in my hair, standing at the helm, watching Madeline Island grow nearer and nearer. Watching the depth sounder for that shoal. Keeping an eye on where the wind was coming from and another on the compass and other boats. Then there was a moment when I said to myself, “This is it. This is your HMS Dolphin, the beginning of your sailing adventures.”
Before I knew it, the first line from the first book slipped right out of my mouth. “My name is Jacky Faber and in London I was born . . .”
Avital Keeley fell in love with sailing and the adventures it has to offer after reading the Bloody Jack Adventures series. She wrote this at age 13, after her first real sailing experience aboard Karen Larson and Jerry Powlas’ Mystic.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
