Issue 33 : Nov/Dec 2003
There are idyllic days when sailing. Many of them. We all recognize this fact, or we wouldn’t be out there with all that canvas in the wind. Those are gorgeous days when nature combines all the elements just so, to create perfection. But those days have their counterparts.
We all know those days, too. It’s breathless and beastly hot with an influx of biting flies, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, whatever. Sweat trickles down our bodies in small rivulets in search of sea level. There’s nowhere to escape from the beating sun, the heat, the insects.
Or it’s freezing cold. Not just brisk. Cold. Mix in a bit of wind-driven precipitation in any of water’s natural states: rain, sleet, hail, snow. Sailors huddle beneath layers of clothing and foul weather gear hating to touch anything with a gloved hand for fear of soaking the last pair of dry gloves.
Or it’s too windy. This comes to different boats at different levels on the Beaufort scale. Once you start reefing, pumping the main in the gusts, and dropping sails, you’ve arrived at that point, whether it’s 15 knots of wind or 25 or 35.
There are days, admittedly, when we step off the boat glad to be on solid ground once again. We’re pleased that not much was broken this time or simply overjoyed to head for a shower with unlimited hot water. We know these moments exist. Even if we don’t feel the need to kiss the ground now that we’re safely ashore . . . even if we’re thinking more of creature comforts than the chance to live another day, this sensation has certainly come to all of us.
Why then, as we’re driving home and we take one last look at the boats sailing off in the distance, do we think wistfully about how serene, how peaceful they look? Why is it that reality blurs into the fantasy once more as we gaze longingly at the boats out there sailing and wish we could be there, too?
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
