My introduction to Sailing!

Sailing on Sydney Harbor is a completely different experience to the rough brutal English Channel experience I had earlier in the year. My fun spirited, adventurous, indefatigable friend here, also from Bristol Rowing Club introduced me to Friday night sailing, they call it the twilight session.

We arrived at Sydney Yacht Squadron – the most prestigious sailing club in Sydney (Prince Philip is a patron!) and I was introduced to the Skipper, his wife and their impressive 34ft Beneteau, a large sailing yacht.

Now I don’t have much experience in sailing at all apart from the odd experience between the ages of 14 and 17 I trapezed off the side of a Fireball, great fun until we capsized in the freezing dark Welsh waters. Then there was a few outings on a Laser where the friends Dad form of teaching was to just shout louder in hope we would understand in the end!!?! And then a couple of times on my Grandad’s boat here in Australia. Sailing has been a huge part of his life and I have always admired his strong passion for the sport.

So this Friday evening session is in fact a race but 20 mins into it, the red wine is opened and nibbles and dips are passed round! The sun is setting, we are in Sydney harbor with the Bridge and Opera house so elegantly poised, sea breeze, good company – I can’t imagine a better way of ending the week than this. Everyone has their jobs and works well together on board. There is slight tension between crew now and again but nothing like what was to come on my future sailing expeditions!

We all come in to the club, more wine/beer dinner and I get invited to come back next week to help crew, now with an increasing knowledge of what has to be done on board. As I am so enthusiastic about taking up the sailing I am then introduced to a guy who is organizing a course on sailing Ynglings, a boat slightly bigger than the Laser but less vulnerable to capsizing… apparently. He says I need to be at the club for 9.30am. I immediately stop drinking and put my self on a train back home.

I arrive at the club bright and early to discover I am being instructed by an Olympic Sailor and using her own Yngling boat she used in Athens! It was theory in the morning and sailing with practice of putting the spinnaker up in the afternoon. I actually felt very, very sea sick towards the end (something that I know I am vulnerable to) and the boatman had to extract me from the sailing vessel and into his speed boat where we powered round the harbor checking on each of the other boats progress while my sickness subsided – I was having terrific fun so I told him and to which he replies ‘well this is only half throttle!!!’ and powers the speed up even more! I got back on the Yngling for the last 10 mins and felt OK. I was then informed I was entered into a regatta the following day where we would do 6 races which would take about 5 hours!! Normal for a sailing regatta I am told. I practically only learnt to sail in a day and even then I was ill but nether the less I couldn’t turn down this opportunity of racing with an Olympic Athlete!

In the morning Lucy my lovely Godmother comes down to the club with me and I manage to get her on one of the speedboats watching our race. The kind gentleman’s daughter is racing in my boat too. So Lucy is whisked away in his Jag to his 3 story house looking over the harbor with speedboat parked out front. The next time I see Lucy she is sitting on the top deck of this speedboat, drinking tea and eating sandwiches, bobbing a few meters away from our finish line.

I made sure I took my Kweles! Which hadn’t worked on the Channel so my faith seriously needed to be with stored now.

Karen the Olympian was amazing, for almost every race we were first off the start and if we weren’t, as soon as we tacked we would be ahead again, she read the water with complete natural instinct and a calm confidence. I was the forignhand where I control the jib sheet and attempted to put the spinnaker up. I should have a lot more jobs but this was about my limits of sailing knowledge! It was great fun and I didn’t feel sick once! To my astonishment we won the regatta – mainly down to Karen’s superior instructing. Once back on land we received our Gold medals, drank lots of champagne and a BBQ to end the day. I was then invited to race on Tuesday night – The Women’s Yngling twilight race!

Tuesday came and I raced with predominant members, Hamish and Louise. This was a lot more serious and I way out of my comfort zone, at one point I thought I might be more help if I jumped out and swam back! I am far from fluent in the technical terms of sailing lingo, they might as well have been talking in some far outback aboriginal tribal language from what I was understanding. Each rope controlling not only different sails but different parts of the sails, and then there is the sea, yes that big vast blue thing that has now turned into this manuscript which needs to be read meticulously to anticipate your every move to ensure the boat is set up on the most dynamic course possible. For what I thought was supposed to be a friendly affair of a race was actually more similar to a heated argument between jail-mates the whole way round! Back in the club we all met and I was asked if I had fun?? I wasn’t sure I had but I knew it wasn’t enough to put me off, so replied ‘oh yes it was great fun’. Secretly thinking I need to get good at sailing FAST or I wont last a second longer. Once the Champaign was flowing (they seem to celebrate a lot!) the outing I had just experienced turned into this fantastic event that I couldn’t wait to happen again! As always I want to take the bull by the horns and get stuck in as much as possible so when Louise suggests joining her the next day for 2 races on a Sydney 38 (another type of huge sailing yacht) I can’t refuse!

Another beautiful day in Sydney! I meet Louise at Milsons Point and we walk across Sydney Harbor Bridge – I have to pinch myself now and again as I feel so lucky to be here. I love this city more and more everyday. It rained a couple of days ago as I was walking back from the station but was actually very refreshing and I always notice how the wet weather enhances the wonderful smell of the eucalyptus trees that line the streets.

The Sydney 38’s are amazing yachts, so big and have a huge presents in the harbor especially when sailing along together in a pack. This time four of us girls have the job of being dead weight on the high side of the boat when keeled over. This is in fact a very important role as it enables the boat run faster! One of the few rolls I have actually mastered! The blazing sun, blue cloudless sky, legs dangling over the edge, high above the seas splash as the yacht blissfully slices through the ocean. The Skipper got a bit hot headed at one point, something or someone had made an error when going about and we were now being over taken – he shouted to the crew ‘that’s it no more beer!’ By this point we had only had one each and I hardly think having the job as ballast weight another beer would make us any better or worse at our job!! Maybe for the more active crew members it would. Anyway it was soon forgotten and back in the docks we all sat in the cock pit (I am still learning the lingo so that could be wrong!??) and lots of lovely canapé type food came out followed by more beer and wine. Louise insisted we did the twilight session, so another Sydney 38 opposite preparing to go out shouted across if any of us wanted to crew so Louise and I piped up and jumped across. This was a shorter race and a younger crew, everyone dashing about their duties despite the fact most people were knew to each other. It was quite an eventful outing as two of the head sails broke, thousands of $ worth of sail gone in an hour. They seemed amazingly chilled out for the damages that occurred!

This sailing lark definitely attracts the most pro-active personality because it’s highly important to look busy this kind of earns your place on the boat, everyone is constantly looking for a job and just getting on with it. My uncle told me when he’s at work he looks busy by walking round the office with a piece of paper in his hand (the paper has nothing on it!) perhaps if I walk around the boat with some rope in my hand this will have the same impression, just while I am learning anyway!

We had another fantastic sail as the sun was setting. Afterwards we all headed to the club bar where all the crews are mingling with each other, the atmosphere is buzzing and I am invited to race on various boats almost everyday next week. Some people I hear call this a boat whore but I see it as fast tracking my boat skills so I can start pulling my weight instead of being just dead weight!!! The down side is I am never going to find a job if I am sailing all the time! But this has to be the most perfect place in the world to learn to sail.