Capsized

The original plan for Monday was to spend maybe fifteen minutes in the classroom and then the rest of the day on the water in the Flying Juniors. As it so happened, we spent four hours in the classroom because of the weather, and only three hours on the boats. The time spent in the class room in the morning was supposed to be used for working on our projects that are due Thursday. Working on projects lasted about halfway to lunchtime then the cards came out and we started playing Euchre, BS, Hearts, and Egyptian Rat Screw. After lunch, Jim taught us more about the FJs as we continued to wait for the weather to lift and the wind to pick up. A little while later we were all on the water.

Two boats flipped while we were out. Nicole and Milton, and Robert and Kurt. Gray and I came fairly close to flipping a couple of times ourselves. As we went through a jibe, the boat healed so much that the leeward rail of the boat went a few inches under the water. We got the boat flattened out and back on course, but now there was nearly five gallons of water in the bottom of our FJ. As it sloshed around it covered our feet in yellow-green water instantly soaking through our shoes. But that was really all the wetter we got.

All that was yesterday... today Gray and I were in the only boat to flip. We turtled it and got the mast stuck about a foot and a half into the mud at the bottom of the bay (not very fun to flip back over.) Thankfully though, the sun was beating down and the wind was relatively light so we dried off fairly quickly.

To make the day better, however, Gray and I won the two windward/leeward races that we ran as a practice for the regatta that is planned for later in the week. Sadly, we weren’t quite as successful at the two gold cup races we ran. The wind died down on the way back in and toward the end of the second gold cup race so it took us all way longer to get back to the dock than it should. As college students are not known for their patience, at least six of the ten boats had had enough moving along at a pace that felt like you were going backwards, they just started paddling with their hands or bailer. It was a great day!

Tomorrow we are going to be back on the keelboats and are going on another daysail. But instead of rafting together to eat box lunches, we will eat at a dockside restaurant, the name of which I haven’t been given or at least don’t remember. But one thing is for sure; They will have great seafood.

Andrew Fisher