Return of the Whippersnapper

Enough of posts for Racing Rules Freaks. This post is about real sailing, as opposed to racing, so there were no rules and no Racing Rules Freaks.

Well, not exactly true. On Friday I went Laser sailing with son #1 who is the very epitome of a Racing Rules Freak. He's even a moderator in the Sailx Protest Room. How freakish is that?

But on Friday there was no racing and so no rules.

Son #1 is also known as The Whippersnapper. I think it was Dan Kim from Adrift at Sea who first gave him that nickname. Whatever. Who cares?

Then, a couple of years ago, when I went sailing with the Whippersnapper at a lake I discovered near his home in Massachusetts I christened it Lake Whippersnapper. It's not really called Lake Whippersnapper. You won't find it under that name on Google Maps.

Anyway we spent Thanksgiving with the Whippersnapper and Mrs Whippersnapper and the two little Whippersnapper offspring at the new Whippersnapper house, which is also not too far from Lake Whippersnapper. Much turkey and white wine and various accompaniments were consumed on Thursday.

So, on Friday, I enticed the Whippersnapper away from all those new house chores... putting up window blinds and installing garage door openers and eating up all the cold turkey... and dragged him to Lake Whippersnapper.

What a great day it was for sailing. Brilliant sunny day. Yummy sailing wind but not as gusty and shifty as the last couple of times I sailed there on my own. We started off with a delicious planing reach down the length of the lake. Then did some informal windward leeward sorta kinda practice races across the lake but we weren't really racing just chilling out and enjoying the sun and the wind and doing the father-son-sailing thing.

Edward the famous EVK4 Superblogger did the father-son-sailing thing too on Saturday. He persuaded his 3-year-old son Noah to go sailing with him for the first time. If you've been following the EVK4 Superblog you will know that Noah was initially a bit nervous about going out on Edward's boat, so this was a big day in the Superblogger family. Woo hoo!

The Whippersnapper was not much older than Noah when I first persuaded him to sit on the bow of my Laser, facing aft, legs either side of the mast, hanging on to the mast for dear life with both hands, and I took him for his first Laser sail. Now the Whippernapper is 30 years old and has two kids of his own. But he still comes Lasering with his old Dad occasionally.

I should have listed that as one of the things I am thankful for in my Thanksgiving Day post. May Edward be as lucky as I am.

Life is good.