Sailing or Failing

I jump onto the hull as my partner hoists the sail up into the air. In a matter of minutes we have the boat rigged and ready to sail. I can tell by the way the wind is blowing across the lake it's going to be a good day to sail. Each day we sailed, partnerships were forced to break up as to challenge us each day getting used to a new partner and better our own sailing abilities. On this particular day, I had a partner who had never sailed in a sunfish before.

The low hull and closeness to the water made him a bit nervous as only two days ago he had been sailing in a training boat that resembled a bathtub and is impossible to capsize. The idea of capsizing in the sunfish was one I was very familiar with after my first day of sailing when my sister and I managed to capsize three different times in the span of 40 minutes.

However, as soon as we pushed off from the dock towards the center of the lake I knew things were not going to be good. I was in the back by the rutter, steering the boat, my partner in charge of the sail. I instructed him when to pull in the sail to pick up speed and when to let it out. Everything was going better than I thought, until it wasn't. We got a huge gust of wind, sending the hull of the boat leaning one way - which is the goal - but this spooked my partner and when I saw the look of fear on his face I told him to let out the sail.

I will never know what went through his head when I told him to let the sail out, but instead he managed to untie the sail from the boat. The hull continued to lean with the wind with such force the boat ended up completely upside down - we had turtled. I could hear the dagger board, the piece of wood going through the center of the boat to help the boat glide through the water, sliding out of place, on its way to the bottom of the lake.

I dove under the boat to retrieve the dagger board as my partner floated on his back un-phased by what had just occurred. From the motor boat headed towards us, one of the instructors, Patrick, asked if we were both okay. Once they assured we were both safe, we managed to get the dagger board back into place and the boat nearly on its side. Putting all of my weight on the dagger board I tried to right the boat, only it wasn't working. My partner refused to help pulling himself up into the motor boat to dry off instead.

Seeing how much I was struggling, Patrick jumped into the water with my and tried himself to upright the boat, still it wouldn't budge. It took him putting all of his weight on the dagger board as I grabbed the top of the hull pulling with my entire body weight did we get the boat up-righted again. We looked up to the top of the mast only to see it caked in mud from the bottom of the lake.

Immediately, we dragged the sunfish back to shore with the motor boat, I was still trying to process what had just happened and how my partner managed to untie a knot that took him two solid minutes to tie in a matter of seconds. When I got home from sailing, my parents were shocked to hear of the events that took place, as were my grandparents. It was in their moment of shock that I realized through everything that happened, I never panicked.

It was an event that I still draw to when I feel like panicking would be necessary, but what would panicking do? My partner panicked and that's why he untied the sail and we flipped in the first place. By staying calm I was able to do what was needed in order to right the boat and get us back in the boat. Even with a few complications with getting the boat back up, I managed to keep a level head. A lesson that I feel is very important to learn, but is one that's hard to learn until you experience it firsthand.