harness the wind: the flying juniors: a survival story.

"Capsizing in an FJ isn't like one second you're sailing and the next you're in the water," explained Captain Richard, our main sailing instructor, this morning before we rigged and boarded our boats. "It's more like, 'eek, eek, oops, we're done, splat.'"

This advice was meant to encourage us before we intentionally tipped over our boats into Frenchman's Creek. And surely enough, the capsizing itself did happen in a sort of slow-motion fall. My partner and I eased into a tack, and instead of switching sides to balance the boat as the sails shifted from starboard to port (it's still strange for me to be using these terms out of the context of Popeye cartoons from my youth), we let the sails collapse on top us and dropped into the water. With our boat-rescuing maneuvers fresh in my head from class, I swam to the horizontally-exposed underside of the boat and heaved all of my 135 pounds onto the boat's centerboard--a sort of counterweight that juts out below the hull--and willed the craft with all of my might and mind to a right-side-up position. And a determined will it certainly took; I practically had to stand up on the thing and stomp it back underwater.

The boats themselves, however, rarely operate at such a dawdling pace. In fact, they tend to catch the slightest puff of air and fling themselves across the water. It's fantastic for racing, of course, but it also, well, can be terrifying. This morning's adventures led me to discover this little fact as well--albeit the hard way. Hardly had I found myself back into the stern when it required my instant and assiduous attention. Finding itself properly righted, the 300-pound vessel (compared to the 3,000- to 10,000-pound keelboats we had been sailing up to this point) scampered across the water at the soonest whisper of wind. Add to this reality the fact that, in FJs, the skipper has to both mind the tiller and trim the mainsail, and well, maybe you won't judge me so harshly when I tell you that seconds later I slammed into the dock.

It was around this time that I acquired another sailing habit: cussing. It may or may not be a permanent addition to my sailing persona, but I have to admit it seemed a fittingly cathartic response to such nautical humiliation. The good news is that neither boat nor dock were damaged, and I have a feeling I'm not the first person to have lost a battle with the wind (which just sounds so much better than blaming it on my clumsiness). Plus, my straits as an FJ skipper substantially improved this afternoon, when we left the creek for the larger bay, where big expanses, longer instruction, and steadier winds restored my faith in myself as a potentially competent FJ sailor.

And finally, some photos.