Well, I gots the book lernin' down real good. Now If'n I could only get into the boat...
Storms were moving through our area last night, and as I got to the lake, the wind was actually too high for us to go out. By 6:00, the time class was to start, it had died down and class was officially on.
The first part of class was a review of boat part names, most of which I remembered, which surprised me. Then we donned our life jackets and headed out to rig our boats. I promptly put the jib on incorrectly, but, hey, it was my first time, and we caught it before we actually got to the water. I can see that rigging the boat is going to be the first hurdle. There's a fair amount to remember, but I suspect after doing it four more times we'll have it down.
After rigging but sails still down (an important point), it was time to actually put our boats in the water. To do that, the boats go on small (a relative term) dollies, sort of like miniature trailers, only meant for people to pull. The boats weigh about 275 pounds but aren't really too bad to pull around, and that's what we did. We pulled and pushed them from the dry dock down the boat ramp and into the water. As I stored the dolly, my sailing partner lead the boat about halfway down the 80 foot dock. Then the instructors told us to get in the boat and raise the sails. My partner, seemingly a bit worried about the boat, told me to go ahead.
Now, I was careful. We had been told that these weren't the most stable boats in the world, so I tried to step toward the middle of the boat. But I didn't have the sense to pick a place on the dock that gave me something to hang on to.
I stepped in, and the boat immediately tilted dangerously toward me and the dock. I thought that perhaps if I placed my other foot in the boat on the other side and hung onto the mast, I might be able to balance the whole thing. (That makes sense, doesn't it?) Wrong. I have this vague memory of thinking I didn't want to fall toward the dock (why I'm not sure) and I went back first into the lake.
Although embarrassing, it could have been far worse -- my glasses stayed on and didn't sink to the bottom, which, I am told, about 50 feet below the dock at that point. I swam to the ramp and trundled back out to the boat, my partner already on board and beginning to lift the sails.
My second foray into the boat turned out a bit nicer. I managed to stay in the boat, and we sailed for probably an hour. Which, actually, was enough. After all the worrys about the wind being too high, we had almost no wind at all. There was enough to keep the boat moving slowly, but not enough to fill it's sails.
Then came time for the capsize exercise. The way the capsize is supposed to work is that you lay the boat on its side, then one member swims around to the centerboard and in pulling the centerboard down, the boat rights itself. As the boat is righted, the other member of the team holds on to the hiking straps and gets scooped into the boat. Then that member helps the person left in the water into the boat over the transom.
It worked that way when the instructors capsized the boat. It even seemed to work the second time they did it and the boat turned turtle. (Means the boat turned completely upside down, as opposed to simply laying on it's side.)
The other team (there are only four of us in the class) consists of two fairly small women. The capsized their boat twice, and neither time were able to right it alone. Then it was our turn. I was confident that it wouldn't be that difficult to right the boat. It was getting back in I wasn't sure about. But when we capsized the boat, the mast already had enough water in it that it almost immediately turned turtle -- not completely but the masts were probably at a 45 degree angle under the water.
And I couldn't reach the stupid center board. And when I finally managed to "jump" (we're in 40 feet of water, remember) and catch the thing, I couldn't get enough leverage to right the boat. Sadly, the instructor had to come out to help me right the boat as well. He managed it by grabbing a part of the hole the centerboard comes through -- something I had tried, but because I tried it at the wrong place, I couldn't get a purchase.
Sigh.
He got it started, I finished it, then swam back to the ramp.
We then grabbed our dollies and loaded our boats, then pulled them up the ramp to their places in the dry dock, then de-rigged.
All in all, not a bad night, but I'm anxious for some real wind next week...