1979

Going Sailing

In March a group of friends and I rented Hobie catamarans on the Indian River.   I had never sailed before but had read about it and after some instructions by the rental place guy I was ready to go.  There were two us to a boat and so I teamed up with another friend who knew even less than I did about sailing.  There was a good steady wind blowing that day as we set out from the dock and got underway.   After a half hour I was getting the feel for sailing, the Hobiecat being quite easy to sail and before long was zipping up and down the river, it was exhilarating.  Changing directions, or coming about as it is called, is a little tricky, with the boom suddenly going from one side of the boat to the other and if your not looking, it can knock you off the boat as my sailing partner learned.  My sailing partner and I were doing well enough with me doing most of the sailing.  With the right wind a Hobiecat can really go fast on the water, and as I saw in some TV show, one hull can lift out of the water which makes you go even faster.  I tightened up the sail and we took off, one hull not quite lifting out of the water but the cat was leaning to one side  when a gust of wind came up tipping the boat over, throwing us both into the water.   Fortunatly neither one of us were hurt and we had life presververs on but we now had to upright the boat which is no easy task.  We had been given instructions about how to do it. With the boat on its side with one pontoon in the water and the other in the air out of the water, there was a rope tied to the base of the mast which you loop over the pontoon out of the water and then standing on the pontoon in the water holding the rope, you leaned back and the boat would be upright.  At first I didn’t think it was going to work, I leaned back and nothing seemed to happen, then slowly at first, the mast started to lift out out the water then quickly uprighted with me falling into the water.  The boat then started to drift away with both of us in the water but fortuntately I held onto the rope and manged to get aboard and then get my sailing partner on board.   Even with the spill, it was a lot of fun.