Sailing Merry Grace

My father would say that I was born to sail, but he never got to teach me.  He sailed Lightnings on Lake Ontario as a kid, and had he lived a bit longer, he would have realized his dream of his own sailboat, moored on the western end of Ontario.  My husband also learned to sail as a child, and even taught sailing while a counselor at his camp.  About seven years ago, he saw an ad for a catboat for sale here on the Vineyard, and from the look in his eye, it was clear that this boat was in our future.  He named her “Merry Grace” – a play on my own name, maybe as an apology, certainly as an attempt to endear me to my new rival.

For the first few years, I was a fairly passive participant, but over time I realized that if anything bad happened, like him falling overboard, I’d be completely helpless.  It was time for me to learn to sail.  So, innocently enough, I asked him to teach me.  I know now (and should have known then) that a husband teaching his wife to sail is doomed to epic failure.  He certainly tried, and I tried to learn from him, but there’s this impenetrable wall that prevented any knowledge from passing from him to me.  I could see his mouth moving, hear that words were coming out and knew that they probably had meaning, but those words just flew through my brain completely unprocessed.  And it doesn’t help that sailing terms themselves comprise a foreign language.  “Hand me a painter, please.”  Um, what?

Sail MV to the rescue . . . Last summer I took their adult series of lessons, and all of a sudden a lot of things started making a lot more sense.  The passenger turned into at least occasionally useful crew.  Maybe even a backseat driver :-)

This weekend we competed in the catboat class of the Vineyard Cup.  Now, catboats are not fast boats, and among catboats, the Merry Grace is certainly not the most intrepid, but she does have heart.  And the Vineyard Cup is a delightful mix of real competition and fun – so it is perfectly acceptable to enter with just the goal of finishing the course and having fun (or at least they are very polite about our doing just that!)  It’s our third year in the Cup, and second year in the catboat class.  For us, it’s a great chance to get out on the water, with a prescribed course, learn from watching others (my husband is new to catboats, even if he already knew how to sail).  They created a special class for catboats after our first year in the normal division, and took great care to devise a course that isn’t impossible for a boat with a hull speed that is less than the peak currents around here. 

We set off across the start with 15 other catboats yesterday, and it was a beautiful sight with all these special boats sailing together.  It wasn’t too long before we had a great view of all the catboats ahead of us, but it was a beautiful day and a beautiful sail, and we crossed the finish line without causing the committee boat too much concern about where we were (I hope!)

But with boats, there’s always something, it seems.  We continued in toward the mooring, me steering the boat (now under power) while my husband took down the sail.  I am still learning, but I could tell something was really wrong.  The sail wouldn’t come down—a line had looped itself around the top of the mast, and the sail was flopping around pretty wildly.  And I now know for sure that Merry Grace is a jealous girl, as somehow a section of the flapping sail with a batten in it managed to be hitting me on the side of the head repeatedly.  Since my husband seemed more bemused than sympathetic about that, I think maybe I should really be worried . . .  But a quick stop at the dock, and an untie and retie of a line, and all was well, and we weren’t even too late for the party.

This year our goal was to finish, and we succeeded.  Next year, maybe the top ten?  Maybe this sailing thing is in my blood after all!