Chapter 1: How I got started sailing
Sometimes I let myself forget how frightened of the water I was as a small child. I didn't learn to swim until I was eight, and even then my relationship with water was shakey and uncertain. It wasn't until I started sailing a couple years later that I discovered the joy of feeling intense terror within the confines of a limited period of time--the sailboat race.
My father was the one with the love of the sea. Of course, living in Minnesota as we did meant that his love to the sea--probably due to his being 1/2 Norwegian--had to be satisfied on an inland lake, Lake Harriet to be exact. The first boat I remember my father having was a flat board that he had turned into a boat with the help of his younger brother Bill. They built this boat and one for Bill as well in my grandmother's garage. It was a wet and cold proposition riding the board. The board was also slippery, and, though many attempts were made to reduce its slipperyness, a ride on the board usually ended with the sailor in the lake and the boat sailing merrily on without him. A short while after these boats were built and abandoned, my father decided to buy what was then the racing boat for persons under sixteen. Since he was pushing 40 at the time, the boat was purchased ostensibly for my brother.
My brother was not a very sociable or likeable kid. He was moody and often mean. Sailing the boat my father bought for him without asking his opinion--possibly accounting for my brother's moodiness and meanness--required finding a crew. Friendless, this task was no easier for my brother than mastering the boat itself. That's why I ended up crewing for him, having had as little choice in the matter as he had.
Sometimes I let myself forget how frightened of the water I was as a small child. I didn't learn to swim until I was eight, and even then my relationship with water was shakey and uncertain. It wasn't until I started sailing a couple years later that I discovered the joy of feeling intense terror within the confines of a limited period of time--the sailboat race.
My father was the one with the love of the sea. Of course, living in Minnesota as we did meant that his love to the sea--probably due to his being 1/2 Norwegian--had to be satisfied on an inland lake, Lake Harriet to be exact. The first boat I remember my father having was a flat board that he had turned into a boat with the help of his younger brother Bill. They built this boat and one for Bill as well in my grandmother's garage. It was a wet and cold proposition riding the board. The board was also slippery, and, though many attempts were made to reduce its slipperyness, a ride on the board usually ended with the sailor in the lake and the boat sailing merrily on without him. A short while after these boats were built and abandoned, my father decided to buy what was then the racing boat for persons under sixteen. Since he was pushing 40 at the time, the boat was purchased ostensibly for my brother.
My brother was not a very sociable or likeable kid. He was moody and often mean. Sailing the boat my father bought for him without asking his opinion--possibly accounting for my brother's moodiness and meanness--required finding a crew. Friendless, this task was no easier for my brother than mastering the boat itself. That's why I ended up crewing for him, having had as little choice in the matter as he had.
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