Pretty water, pretty sail, pretty woman... pretty strange dinghy. Fran is “live ballasted”, which is real important. Her sail can be reefed quickly, which is sometimes important.
Swamping the dinghy is a high priority. Knockdown and capsize too. Then broken rig, what to do when that happens. This is the Self-Rescue Lesson, level one. Not everyone gets swamped in the first lesson, but we are aboard the sailing ship, Karrek-Ven, so have her tender for a rescue boat. And we are on (will soon be in) clean tropical waters, so even this part of the learning is fun.
Judith had seen me sailing around the bay. When she and my friend Rick happened to meet ashore, she asked if he thought I’d be interested in giving her sailing lessons. Rick thought yes and told me. So, I sailed over to Karrek-Ven and told her that I like teaching motivated people fun things that I’m good at. It goes back to my flight instructor days.
The subject sailing dinghy is Fran, a one-of-a-kind homemade plywood boat, about the proportions of a canoe but flat bottomed, slab sided, and blunt ended, like a stretched pram. But narrow enough to paddle like a kayak. Though mostly open, Fran’s enclosed bow gives an estimated hundred kilos of buoyancy. The seat, a large fender (firmly tied downward) provides twenty kilos of buoyancy aft (the entire rail, bow to stern, must be above the water to bail an open boat). Fran is a fairly minimal boat and weighs less than her operator, so she is “live ballasted”. With Fran, that is real important – she’s “tippy”. Her rig is as simple as I could contrive, a single sail with everything except its sheet attached to the mast. When the mast drops into its step, the sail falls open, you sheet in, and she’s sailing. When the mast is pulled out of its step, the entire rig collapses over your shoulder into the boat... if she’s heading into the wind. The entire rig comes down for adjustments, repairs, and to right her when knocked down. Or to paddle home when something breaks, or the wind fails.
My students watch from on deck aboard Karrek-Ven as I demonstrate under sail, first partially swamped then fully swamped, knocked down, and capsized, as separate steps to show different degrees of the situation. Then I deploy the sail as a sea anchor, right the boat (pouring out as much water as possible), board her, and bail her. Some swamped dinghies must be partially bailed before re-boarding, some can be bailed from aboard (Fran), some require outside assistance. Some dinghies sink out of sight. Test your dinghy near the beach. I demonstrate the use of paddles, leeboard, and bailer to scoop the water out over the lee rail, heeling the rail close to the water. Water is heavy so lift it as little as necessary. (If you have nothing, your hands cupped together works pretty well). Then I show how to get home when the rig breaks: paddles or oars if you’ve got them, the leeboard or dagger board as a paddle kind of works, or surfboard style, lying over the bow paddling with your hands, if the bow is low enough.
Then Judith, Julian, and Leo each take their turn. Judith and Julian are crew aboard the Karrek-Ven, Leo is the captain.
After the self-rescue lesson, the venue changes to my own yacht, where I can teach from the comfort of home. Same format: I demonstrate then Judith and Julian each take a turn.
We start with the basics, including pulling the dinghy alongside, boarding, stepping the mast, sheeting, steering, bailing, using the leeboard, tacking, jibing, and different points of sail. Julian already has beach catamaran experience, so his first sail is solo. Judith gets a dual session first, with us taking turns until she feels comfortable to practice on her own.
Basic landings (simulating alongside a yacht) are first practiced on a fender hanging astern (or inflatable dinghy, if you have one), approaching from all directions. The object is to come to a stop beside it, bow into the wind, or, failing, to fall off the wind without touching the target, sail off, and try again. Most of the practice is just getting a feel for the boat and learning to detect and respond to the ever changing, sometimes gusty breeze. A close grouping of fishing floats in the bay serves as a slalom course. Little tricks include backing the forward part of the sail (the whole sail on boats having a boom, backing your headsail, if you have one) to turn the boat one way or the other when caught in irons (in the eye of the wind) or for trick moves in tight quarters.
We’d done several sessions over a number of days in moderate conditions. Then the wind pipes up, a good fresh breeze. I take a reef in Fran’s sail and sail by Karrek-Ven to tell them they must have a lesson before the wind subsides. “Survival training”, I call it, how to get home when you have too much wind or sail. As the wind increases, there comes a time when one must shorten sail (reef, scandalize, or change to a smaller sail) or begin sailing by the luff, easing the sail out to decrease its power. At the same time, one wants as much power as can be handled to keep the boat moving well. As the wind picks up, so do the waves. Sailing by the luff, leeway increases, speed may decrease, and the boat may need to be steered farther off the wind. If you are downwind from home, everything is working against you. There may be other factors as well, current, weather, approaching night, and/or broken equipment. You may be bailing, too. If your dinghy is set up for paddling or rowing, this could be the time.
So, I tell Judith and Julian to practice upwind, and to constantly fight for everything they can get to weather. I’d first thought that we would shake out the reef and use full sail, but after sailing in, to Sally’s for breakfast earlier, I reckon that a reefed sail will be plenty.
I ask which of them wants to go first, presuming that I already know the answer. Julian has previous sailing experience, is a couple years older, and is a man. I’d previously told Judith my theory that man’s instinct is to do or die against the tiger, and woman’s instinct is to survive to raise the kids – that’s how we got here... just a theory....
Julian sets out hard on a brisk breeze and manages several hundred meters to weather before getting into a stronger wind that starts to cost him ground. His battle with the wind pushes him downwind then a gust nearly knocks him down, partially swamping the boat. Partially swamping Fran in this kind of wind usually means a knockdown, too – a swamped dinghy is far less stable. The rescue policy has been clearly stated: in these conditions, if you knock down, we respond. But Julian doesn’t want to be rescued. He somehow keeps her up, bails enough to continue sailing, loses some more ground, then finally begins climbing the wind back towards us.
Judith’s turn. She’s has the advantage of my running commentary on Julian’s sail. Still, these are challenging conditions even with Fran reefed to less than two and a half meters of sail.
Judith also manages to claw to weather for a while before the wind starts pushing her downwind. Then she takes a knockdown. We already know she can swim, she has been swimming from the Karrek-Ven, anchored in the outer reaches of the bay, to the beach and back on a daily basis. So Julian and I make a leisurely job of pulling up the rescue boat and motor out to where she is busily rescuing herself.
“Still having fun?”
“Yes!” with a smile.
So, we shut down the outboard and stand by with oars until she’s up and sailing again, then return to watch from the shade.
She continues to lose ground, about as much as Julian had, then gradually starts to gain ground. Then she repeats a mistake Julian had made, getting in the lee of a moored ship. She disappears from sight for quite a while in its wind shadow. The rescue crew sits tight. Finally, she emerges on the other side and continues making progress to weather, up into the anchorage.
Judith takes another knockdown. Julian and I repeat our leisurely response – that being today’s rule. We meet her about halfway. She has bailed Fran enough to paddle back and is impressed with how well the paddles handle this kind of wind. Arguably, at their farthest point downwind (or before), both she and Julian should have taken down the rig and paddled home.
Everything Fran and I taught Judith and Julian was basic dinghy sailing in a sheltered bay, under supervision. We did not get into expedition sailing (out of sight around the point or beyond), which requires much more experience, additional equipment and signaling gear, a reliable weather briefing, knowledge of currents, repair capabilities, a proven dinghy, and a willingness and ability to deal with the unexpected. Also, a “flight plan” (a capable person who knows your intentions and when to expect you back), and the ability to survive the night and next day out on the water or pulled up on shore, if it comes to that. A visualization for yacht sailors contemplating an open water dinghy sailing adventure is to imagine the waves several times higher, the current several times stronger, the wind two forces higher (one if you can reef), and distances much greater.
Caribbean Compass, Nov. '06