The Second Day
All week my mind was on sailing. Even in me sleep I was dreaming I was sailing! And I am a person who doesn’t remember his dreams. I was really looking forward to it. I was checking the weather forecast on the BBC website and I was very excited. Last night I prepared my bag (a bigger bag this time because I had more gear). I packed in my brand new wetsuit, buoyancy aid, boots and gloves as well as a Helly Hansen weatherproof jacket, that I had bought some years back and not used a lot, and a change of clothes. This morning I woke up, got dressed and drove to Wembley Sailing Club. I was there in ten minutes. It’s not far from where I live. This time it felt different, I had been there before, I knew the people, it was a familiar. I felt like a part of the whole set.
We were partnered and assigned an instructor. They put us together as before, but a couple of people had called-in sick so the necessary adjustments were made. I was still with Kelly and Danny was still our instructor. Danny commented on my new gear saying that it meant I was keen and serious about it. I said “you bet I am”. This time, rigging the Vision was quicker because we already knew how to do things. When everybody was ready we launched the dinghy and me and Kelly alternatingly took helm in order to remember the things we had learnt last week. We did a few tacks and this time I felt much more relaxed and comfortable. I was not panicking when I was tacking and everything was smoother. Maybe all the practice in my dreams helped! The wind seemed stronger than last week and more gusty. We did a couple of runs and then we were called in for tea-break. There we were told that the wind gusts were too strong and we couldn’t do more sailing. We would wait hoping that the wind would ease.
We did all the theory though. The theory is mainly “Rules of the road” and meteorology. The rules of the road are simple laws that explain who is right when two boats meet and who should give way. It gets complicated when it comes to terms like starboard tack and port tack, windward boat and leeward boat, showing reds and greens and so on. Meteorology seemed simpler but obviously it isn’t. I think it takes some time to learn these things and you learn as you go. Unfortunately the weather didn’t get any better, so we pulled the boats off the water and packed them away. I bought my RYA Syllabus and Logbook booklet. The logbook has lists all the things you need to learn during the RYA sailing scheme, has special space to attach your certificates as proof and has some special pages for a sailing log. Quite simple though, you just write down how many hours you sailed, what was the weather, what sort of sailing you did and where. Danny, my instructor, signed off the things I had done. Two items were left to do. Gybing (turning with the wind behind the boat) and getting out of in-irons (when the boat is facing directly the wind and cannot move). I also bought another RYA booklet called Start Sailing. It’s for beginners and it explains all the things you learn in Levels 1 & 2. It explains the theory, it shows the different parts of the boat, ropes, knots, etc.
We re-scheduled the “second day” for another Sunday. Unfortunately we couldn’t do it all together and we had to be put in empty slots of other training days. By the time I arranged mine, all the slots were gone and Easter was in-between and the result was that I was re-scheduled for 7th May. That’s too long to go without sailing. I was told though that since I would become Wembley Sailing Club member I could go any Sunday to get a boat and sail anyway. The following Sunday they will have the first meeting of the New Members Club (a club within the club, for beginners to get together so they don’t feel intimidated by the more experienced members) and I am more than welcome to join in. By the way, being a member doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have RYA certificates.
The second day proved to be a bit of a disappointment. We’ll see what the future holds.