Playing (with) a Spinnaker - Part 2

RS100s at Minorca Sailing

After two days in the Basic Asymmetric Class at Minorca Sailing last year I had eventually managed to refresh my skills to the point which they had reached the previous year: I could sail a heavy stable boat like the RS Vareo upwind and downwind without capsizing (much.)

Now I was ready to try out the RS100.

I had a bit of a shocker when I arrived for class on the third day of my holiday. My instructor informed me that they wanted to put me in the Advanced Asymmetric Class!! What?? Just because I can sail a Vareo up and down for an afternoon without capsizing (much) I now qualify as an advanced asymmetric sailor? I don't think so.

To be fair to the instructor I think the other students in the basic class needed a lot more attention than I did. I've always been happiest learning a new sailing skill by hearing some brief instructions from a coach and then going out and practicing that skill by myself for a couple of hours. I guess the instructor wanted to bounce me up to the advanced class so he could focus 100% on coaching the real beginners.

But I was not going to go gentle into that good night.

I asked what the advanced class was doing that day. Starting drills, I was told. OK. That's it. I don't want a lesson in all that stuff about line sights and favored ends and gaps to leeward etc. etc. I've been doing starts badly in a Laser for 30 years so I don't need to learn all over again how to do bad starts in an RS100. I want to learn how to sail around with that big flappy sail without the big flappy sail tipping me over (much.)

So they let me free sail an RS100 all morning and I have to say it was a real pleasure. Light, responsive. Handled much like a Laser upwind and it was a huge thrill when you got the big flappy sail drawing downwind.

And in the afternoon I signed up for a sail on the Laser SB3 so that was all good too.

On day four the instructors had a different strategy. Instead of trying to kick me upstairs to the advanced class they said they would merge the two classes. Hmmm. I guess I can't argue with that one. I said I would sail an RS100 again.

It was a day of boat-handling drills. You know how that works. The evil instructors devise drills that require the maximum amount of effort by the students and the minimum amount of zooming around in RIBs by the instructors.

The most devilish drill was one where they dropped a windward and a leeward mark a short distance apart from each other and then parked their RIB halfway between them. We poor students, all sailing those Evil Capsizing Asymmetric Spinnaker Boats had to...

• bear off around the windward mark 
• hoist the big flappy sail 
• gybe 
• drop the big flappy sail 
• do a 360 around the RIB 
• hoist the big flappy sail 
• gybe 
• drop the big flappy sail 
• round the leeward mark 
• do three tacks 
• do a 360 around the RIB 
• do three more tacks 
• repeat ad infinitum

I was doing pretty well compared to the other students (even the exalted ones from the advanced class) even if I do say so myself, but after a couple of hours of this, and similar, torture I was totally knackered. So I had a long nap after lunch. Beer may have been a factor.

On the fourth day, the instructor told me that I was now in the Advanced Asymmetric Class. Didn't even give me a choice. Bugger this, I thought. Who do they think I am? I am the famous Tillerman, totally crap blogging sailor. I am not advanced at anything. "So what is the advanced class doing today?" I asked.

It turned out that the Advanced Laser Class and Advanced Asymmetric Class were both doing the Sea Sail that day, when you get to sail outside the bay on the wide and wild Mediterranean Ocean. As last week's Sea Sail in Lasers had been a bit of a non-event on account of very light winds, I decided that I would take a Laser on the Sea Sail this day so I could get some practice sailing a Laser on the huge waves on the wide and wild Mediterranean Ocean. Ha ha. Foiled 'em again. You can't make me an advanced asymmetric sailor that easily.

On the fifth day I finally relented and let them kick me out of the Basic Class. I sailed the RS100 with the Advanced Asymmetric Class. It was actually quite interesting. All to do with comparing high and low angles downwind and seeing which was faster. Then we did a race around the island and back to the beach for lunch, which I won by a huge margin. I always try to win the race when there's beer at the end.

In the afternoon I went out and played in the RS100 on my own and capsized it for the first time and then had a very painful experience when I discovered that those wings make the distance from centerboard to gunwale on an RS100 longer than my inside leg measurement by a few (very critical) inches. I don't want to talk about it.

After a suitably mellow couple of hours at the hotel (rum may have been involved) the pain from my capsize recovery had eased somewhat, and it was off to Ca Na Marga with the beautiful Tillerwoman and my new Best Friends Forever from the Advanced Asymmetric Class for a dinner of fillet steak with goat cheese salad, washed down by a bottle (or several) of Rioja.

Life is good.

Playing (with) a Spinnaker - Part 1

RS Vareos at Minorca Sailing

Regular readers of this blog will know that 99% of my sailing is done in Lasers. But occasionally I like to challenge myself by sailing in other kinds of boats with devilish contraptions designed to confuse the poor, innocent, ususpecting Laser sailor... like another sail. Yikes!

Such was the case on my vacation in September at Minorca Sailing last year. I spent the first week working on my Laser skills (i.e. attempting to fix my general lack of Laser skills) with an excellent coach. Then the second week I joined what was laughingly described as the Basic Asymmetric Class where they sailed boats like the RS100 which are basically Lasers on steroids with all sorts of extra goodies like carbon fiber spars and a mainsail made of that crinkly see-through stuff and wings sticking out the side of the hull (what's all that about?) and OMG! some extra sail called an asymmetric spinnaker, a big flappy thing up front which looks about twice the size of a Laser mainsail and which, I learned, you actually have to pull up and down while you are still sailing the boat and steering and looking where you are going and all that other stuff.

I didn't mention to the staff that I had sorta kinda done a bit of the Basic Asymmetric Class at Minorca Sailing back in 2010, so on the first day they put me in a double handed asymmetric boat. My partner was a lady who had crewed a lot in asymmetric dinghies and wanted to learn how to helm. So they kind of figured we would make a perfect team. One of us (her) who knew a lot about spinnakers and a little about helming; and the other (me) who knew a little about helming and absolutely nothing about spinnakers.

It was a good theory...

I discovered how to get a spinnaker up and down and how easy they are to gybe if you have someone else handling the steering. She learned that if you let go of the tiller during a tack you will go around in circles several times while your crew cowers in the bottom of the boat trying not to get his head knocked off by the boom twice on every circle and screaming incoherently something about grabbing the tiller. I think it was a learning experience for both of us.

On the second day the instructor determined that I was ready to go solo in an RS Vareo, an older design of asymmetric single hander than the RS100, and supposedly a bit more stable than the RS100. (Clearly he had not been watching closely how badly I had been sailing on Day 1.) It was a nice gusty Force 3 to 4 kind of day, perfect for having fun on a Laser. I quickly discovered that my Laser sailing instincts did not work in an asymmetric single-hander. I managed three successful gybes and five gybes that ended in capsizes. I did not consider this a successful morning.

Over lunch and a beer or two I gave myself a good talking to. I had to rid myself of old Laser habits like heading up if overpowered. This is absolutely the wrong thing to do when gybing an asymmetric boat and will usually end in tears. That bloody spinnaker thing will tip the boat over every time. The old dinghy sailors' mantra of "Tiller Towards Trouble" has to be unlearned.

So I decided that the afternoon would be spent sailing up and down the bay in the Vareo doing as many spinnaker gybes as I could on each downwind leg, preferably without capsizing.

The first run I took it fairly cautiously and managed three rather timid gybes (and zero capsizes.)

The second run I was feeling a little more ambitious and scored five slightly less timid gybes (and zero capsizes.)

On the third run I was really feeling my oats and pulled off seven rather stylish gybes if I do say so myself (with zero capsizes.)

On the fourth run down the bay I had the bit between my teeth and executed thirteen quite slick gybes (if I may be so immodest) and absolutely no frigging capsizes.

I finished off the afternoon with a victory lap including fifteen absolutely superb gybes (it's just a shame I have no video to show you) and, of course, nary a single capsize.

So that was the score for the day...
Morning: Me 3 - Evil Capsizing Asymmetric Spinnaker Boat 5.
Afternoon: Me 43 - Evil Capsizing Asymmetric Spinnaker Boat 0.

By now the sun was over the yardarm/ I was feeling it must be five o'clock somewhere/ insert own metaphor for "it's time to find that bottle of rum in the hotel room" and so I declared victory and headed in.

Then, after a suitably mellow hour or two of relaxation, it was off to El Pescador with Tillerwoman for a plate of Fried Whitebait followed by some Sea Bass Menorcan Style washed down with a suitably celebratory quantity of White Spanish Plonk.

Life is good.

Coming soon: Playing (with) a Spinnaker - Part 2 in which our intrepid hero attempts to sail the RS100 and is kicked out of the sailing class.

Playing with Dad

A couple of weeks ago I posted in Playing with Mum, a picture from the mid-1950s of my mother and me having fun together. This picture from the same era, maybe a year or two earlier, is of my Dad playing on the beach with me. It would have been the beach at Ingoldmells in Lincolnshire on the east coast of England. I know that because that's where we went for a week or two every summer. That's the only place we ever went to the beach in those days.

My father would have been in his early 30s in this picture. He must have thought he had it made. A wife, two children, good health, a steady job with a pension, large circle of friends and extended family living in the same town (the town where he was born), a home (rented), and a chance to get away to the seaside every summer to play with his kids on the beach. I don't think he ever really wished for much more.

There are pictures somewhere of me playing with my own kids on a beach in Brittany at about that age. Life doesn't change much. Or does it?

My father's early adult life was dramatically different from mine. He was part of the "greatest generation." His 18th birthday was exactly one week before Hitler's tanks rolled into Poland. Not long afterwards he was in the Royal Air Force, and he wasn't demobilized until 1946. So he basically spent all the years from when he was 18 to 25 years old serving in World War 2.

18 to 25! I try to avoid referring to any years as the "best years of my life" but if I had to choose one period it might well be those years when I was 18 to 25. Leaving home and going to college. Making so many new friends. Having so many new experiences. Starting one career and then changing to another. Meeting my future wife and marrying her. (Actually Dad did manage to fit that part in towards the end of the war.) Traveling all over France with a college buddy one summer (without having to storm the beaches of Normandy first.) Spending another summer with my then girlfriend hiking in the Austrian Alps. (Not exactly an option for my parents in the summer of 1945.)

I often feel that those years were "stolen" from my parents. But I don't think they saw things that way. They, and all their generation, just did what needed to be done. The world would have been a very different place for my generation if they hadn't succeeded. Mum and Dad's most vivid memories in later years were certainly from the years of "the war." It was always "the war" for them. As if there hadn't been any other wars before or since. I guess wars do that to people. 

This Memorial Day weekend my sons, my father's grandsons, have been the Dads playing on the beach with their own children, my father's American great grandchildren whom he never lived to see.

The play goes on.

Never Leave the Playground

Thanks to the Bursledon Blogger for drawing my attention to the video of this amazing man who certainly demonstrates the value of play for people of any age.

Find more inspiring video, audio, and images at Growing Bolder.

The Seriousness of Play

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play" - Heraclitus.

Seriousness?  WTF is Heraclitus talking about?

Or is he being ironic, like some bloggers we know? Does he mean that man is most nearly himself when he is not serious at all? That our true nature is to be frivolous?

Surely not. By all accounts he was a miserable old sod, sometimes being known as the "weeping philosopher." He got the dropsy and treated himself with a "liniment of cow manure." Then he died. It doesn't sound like he was a barrel of laughs to me

So is he saying that children's play is deadly serious and we grownups should play seriously too?

My play is sailing a Laser and regular readers will know that from time to time, about once very three or four years or so, I threaten to get serious about it. Get fit. Train. Work hard. Keep a training log. Learn from my mistakes. Sail 100 times a year. Actually try to win regattas and stuff.

But that mood doesn't last very long, and pretty soon I'm back to being happy as a fat, lazy, dumb, totally useless, back-of-the-fleet, crap sailor again.

What do you think? Should we be serious about play? Is play more fun if you take it seriously?

And if you got the dropsy would you self-medicate with liniment of cow manure...  or rum?

Playing Tacti-Crack

What else I am supposed to do?

I did my back in last week from a combination of too much running, sailing in too much wind, too much gardening, and too much Facebook and Twitter.

Or something.

It's getting better. But slowly.

It's not better enough yet to risk Laser sailing with it.

And this is the best time of the year to go sailing.

It's killing me.

So today I played SailX the best online multi-player sailboat racing simulator on the planet.

Hey, it may be the only online multi-player sailboat racing simulator on the planet, for all I know.

Back in the day, I was pretty good at SailX, formerly know officially as Tacticat... or Tact-Crack for the addicted.

Hey, I was even interviewed about one regatta by the famous sailing interviewer, Barry Dobson.

But now I'm crap.

I'm out of practice.

I fouled other sailors at the start. I was OCS all the time. I fouled other sailors at the marks. It was awful.

Also I have a different computer now. The Shift key is where the arrow keys used to be. This means that every time I try to put the bow down I accidentally let go of the sheet instead. Not fast!

I did see some of my old sailing buddies. Sailing_Rugger. Bluenose. Litoralis.

Geeze those guys are fast. They probably "sail" on Tacti-Crack every day.

The worst thing is that I know that when my back is better and I do get back into real Laser sailing again, I'm going to be so out of practice that I will be as bad as I was today on Tacti-Crack.

Getting old sucks.

Go the F**k Home

As regular readers of this blog will have gathered, the theme of the blog for this month has been PLAY. Every day in May (so far) I have written a post on this topic.

It's been pretty easy really. Since I decided to give up working for a living a few years back, pretty much everything I do is play.

Sailing is play.

Running is play.

Blogging is play.

Gardening is play.

Playing with grandkids is playing with grandkids.

Sitting on our deck with my wife on a Wednesday evening, enjoying a bottle of wine while we watch sailboats racing and the sun setting is...  well, it's a lot better than being at work.

But I realize that many of my readers are still working to make enough money so that one day they can go home and play.

I also know for a fact that most of you read this blog during the hours you should be working.

This video is for you.

The bit of it I like best is the part where she says if you can't name at least two things you are doing outside work then you don't have a life.

And the way she keeps saying, "Go the F**k home!"

Too Old to Play?

Is there any game or sport you feel you are too old to play now?

Good question.

I guess I'm probably not going to play rugby again. Had to play it at school. Hated it even then. Seemed to be all about bigger boys running at me and knocking me over. And I never quite got into enjoying that whole homoerotic thing about sticking my head between other boys' buttocks in the scrum.

American football. I might throw a pointy ball around with my grandsons one day, but I'm never going to play a real game of this strange and mystifying sport. Does anyone over 40 play it?

Scuba diving. Hang gliding. Parachute jumping. Never done any of them. Probably never will. Given my general clumsiness and propensity to make stupid mistakes when I am playing any game, I tend to avoid sports where stupid mistakes are likely to end in death of aforementioned clumsy, stupid individual.

Skiing. Used to ski a lot. Was totally crap at it but enjoyed it. I don't think I'm too old to do it again if the opportunity presents itself, am I?

Grand Prix motor racing? Round the world yacht racing? Tour de France? Don't be silly.

Marathon running. Did it three times. One was OK but it was really tough to finish the other two. But I did finish them. I proved something. Don't need to prove it again, do I? But you never know.

Half-marathon running. Have run a few. Would like to run a few more. Actually I am signed up for one this weekend but I hurt my back a couple of weeks ago. It's on the mend now but I don't think I'm going to be ready to run 13.1 miles on Sunday.

Laser sailing. Talking of the back injury, there was a day or two when I really wondered whether my back would ever be up to sitting on a Laser again. Which would have made that sail I wrote about at Scary Play my last time ever sailing a Laser. A big deal. The Last Time.  That would have been a sad way to bow out because I was freaked out by those 30 knot gusts and was sailing very defensively. I hope the last time will be a day when I give it my all, 110% effort, and go out with a bang. So I can't give Laser sailing up just yet. Maybe in another 20 years or so.

What about you?

Is there any game or sport you feel you are too old to play now?

Caption Contest

The Play's the Thing

This blog is a sailing blog.

No. Don't laugh. Really. It is.

I do write about sailing.

Well, sometimes I do.

But this month I've set myself a meaningless challenge, to write a post every day on the topic of "play."

One meaning of the word "play" is a dramatic composition or piece, a dramatic performance, as on the stage.

So I ask myself, "Are there any plays about sailing?"

I can't think of any.

But then I am not very knowledgeable about the theater.

I do know there aren't many good movies about sailing. But there are some. Well, at least one.

But my readers are much smarter than me.

So tell me, are there any good plays about sailing?