Saturday, March 27, 2010

Men's Lunch at SYC

I received a bit of an introduction to the Seattle boating scene earlier this week as a guest at the Seattle Yacht Club's weekly Men's Lunch. I was meeting with a friend of my kindergarten teacher, a retired lawyer and longtime member of the club, to discuss the Seattle legal scene and job market. Our discussion was good and the food delicious, but I was most impressed with how friendly all of the other members were. They were keen to initiate introductions and greet an unfamiliar face, which is never a given in such a situation. In nearly a year as a member of my local golf club, I've only met a handful more people than I did in one afternoon at the SYC. I don't know whether that's a tribute to the SYC, the Men's Lunch function itself or the Seattle boating community in general, but it has to be a good sign for the future.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Boatyard

Now for the impetus of this blog--I'm building my own boat! Or rather, my dad and I are building a boat. This has been one of my ideas to increase my time on the water since moving back to the Seattle area last year, and now I've finally got the momentum to undertake it. I've got enough time on my hands to finish this pretty quickly, but given my lack of woodworking skills, the time frame for completion is also significantly dependent on my dad's free time as well. However, we're building the boat based on plans from a library book, and since the book is due back in 3 weeks, there's not much time to lose. The book we're following is Instant Boatbuilding with Dynamite Payson by Harold H. "Dynamite" Payson, and we've selected the "Cartopper" as our boat of choice. According to the book, the boat can be built out of four sheets of 1/4" x 4' x 8' marine grade plywood, which should keep the costs of this project to a minimum. However, we've already noticed that some pieces called for in the written-out instructions don't quite make it onto the diagram of the four sheets of plywood, leading to a sense of foreboding about what else might be missing. My dad is checking in with the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle to see if they have any suggestions before we get started, and then I'll source our plywood and get started measuring things out.

Weighing Anchor

Welcome to The Aspiring Yachtsman, a log of my voyage into the world of sailing. Since May 11, 2007, the day I first set foot aboard a sailboat in earnest, I've been hooked. I was mesmerized by the sensation of gliding through the waves with the help of nothing but the wind and a resourceful application of the laws of physics. At the time, I was working at a law firm in London and was only able to make it out on the water a few weekends that first year, racing with the firm's sailing team on a Beneteau 40.7. Towards the end of the summer, my friends and I embarked on a sailing holiday in Croatia, cruising among several of the islands off of Split. We hired a professional skipper to manage the boat, but I set my sights on the day when I would be able to captain such a expedition myself.

I enrolled in the land-based day skipper theory course over the winter, which seemed to unite my interests in mathematics, geography and sailing. The next summer, I once again raced with the firm's sailing team, but was still dissatisfied with the limited amount of time I was able to spend on the water. In March 2009, I headed to Gran Canaria for a Day Skipper practical course and to get my RYA Day Skipper Certification. It was a rough week. I struggled to remember even the basics I had learned in the theory course, and lacked confidence in handling the boat. One of the biggest problems I had was getting a feel for the wind, since hitherto my experience had been limited to pulling ropes and cranking winches as a member of a racing crew. I needed to go back to the basics.

During the past year I have come up with several plans to improve my sailing acumen. Since I am currently out of work, my ideas haven't been limited so much by a lack of time, but rather a lack of commitment. I had considered volunteering as a deckhand on boats in the Mediterranean and South Pacific, joining a sailing club with boat-sharing privileges and even purchasing my own yacht, but each of these ideas fell through. Thus, one year on from becoming a certified, yet woefully inexperienced, Day Skipper, I am no better yachtsman than I was when I left Puerto de Mogan, Gran Canaria.

The Aspiring Yachtsman is my attempt at changing tack in an effort to make more headway in my journey as a sailor. Keeping a log will help to ensure I stay on course. by holding me accountable to my goals. At the moment, those goals are to increase my confidence and abilities on the water, to achieve a greater understanding of the physics of sail power and fluid mechanics, and to spend more time participating in an activity I love. These are modest goals for a start, but no matter my ultimate destination along this journey, any progress I make towards them will add wind to my sails.