This summer I decided to make something I’ve long wanted to do happen. I made a real effort to learn to sail.

I’ve always been fascinated by sailboats. The idea of using just the wind to go anywhere I think is a very exciting and freeing idea. I also love the water and enjoy boating but I’ve always found power boating a little obnoxious. The engine is noisy and the boat makes a huge wake ruining the scenery and disrupting everything around it.

During the pandemic I started watching a number of sailing Youtube series. I think what lead me there was a desire to visit islands but to enjoy the journey there more. In summer 2019 my wife and I took a trip the islands of Saint Martin and Anguilla. I really enjoyed the trip and I really liked the idea of island hoping in a sailboat. This lead me to finding a number of sailing Youtube series such as “The Adventures of Tarka” . These tourist videos made me want to experience the world that way. Seeing the world from a sailboath. The only problem with this dream is I live in the middle of North America far from any sea, unless you count all corn around me.

Despair not, as I discovered a local sailing club near me which gives sailing lessons on the Mississippi river just a 15 min drive from my house. This is incredible luck. So I signed up for lessons on the second week in June and began to learn to sail. What I quickly learned is I’m a terrible sailor. I’m bad at reading the wind. I get anxious at the tiller and I have little sense of direction to execute a proper tack to sail to a point. I think I may have been one of the worst students in the sailing class.

The first time I was out in the boat without an instructor I nearly capsized the small hunter 170 sailboat. If it hadn’t been for the athleticism of my crew. Many thanks to Nate a nimble fellow who somehow kept the boat up as I spun it in a circle with and watched water rise up the rail.

Despite this I didn’t give up and I joined the sailing club as an associate member so I could take the school boats out on Saturday on my own. I had a number of interesting sailing experiences over the summer. It was interesting to me the people that would show up at the sailing club wanting to take a first sail and see what it was like. I think a lot of people are attracted to sailboats and learning to sail. Probably my most interesting day was taking out the local minor league baseball team’s owner out on a sailboat for a couple of hours. Its not at all how I expected to spend my morning. I took a friend (Travis) and my wife out on the sailboat and I learned the basics of piloting the boat in the River.

The sailing school I learned to sail at is attached to a sailing club. I believe the goal for the sailing school is to attempt to attract new members to the sailing club. Lake Davenport Sailing Club is a throwback to an earlier time when people did things outside their home. Now so many interesting video games and things to watch on TV have caused membership to decline. Despite most of the members being from my fathers generation I’ve elected to join the club and learn to race sailboats, but these are blog topics on their own.

Its interesting where I’ve ended up vs. where I started. Initially I wanted to learn to sail a large keelboat around the Ocean. Now I’m racing smallish dinghy’s in the Mississippi River. I think what I’ve had to do is modify my goals to match my environment. This isn’t a bad thing. I set out to learn sailboating and I’m doing it and I’ve discovered something a bit unique in my corner of the world. These are things I’m glad for.