When the fever hits

I had not been in control of a boat since I was 16 years old. Sure, that is not exactly true.

We hired a tinny on the Sunshine Coast with the view to catching a fish. Fortunately, no fish were harmed in the practicality of that adventure.

We also bought a secondhand kayak and put it on our jetty. “Have a look at our new boat,” I would say to anybody who dropped by. “It’s the green one.”

They were always disappointed. I traded the kayak about a year later for a mountain bike. That remains largely unused too.

But, one day it occurred to me that the thing that I had been looking for was sailing. I remember waking up one morning and just knew. Funny thing was that I had not realised that I had even been looking.

Maybe it found me. I’m comfortable with that.

“Where to from here,” I considered? Buy a sailboat? Probably not. That involves spending a not insubstantial sum of cash for a ‘hobby’. This for a guy who at the age of 50 had no toys whatsoever was not my first and natural instinct.

Lessons on how to sail? Yep, that felt right. So I let my fingers do the walking and three months later my bonafide learn to sail course started. Two full days of the basics: from theory to rigging to unassisted sailing a Laser on the afternoon of day one.

Then crewing a 22 footer on day two. At the time I put on my bravest face, but the loud snapping of the Mylar mainsail after hoisting had me filled with fear. It sounded so aggressive! And how did you stop it again?

I knew nothing about sailing, save a sailing basics book I was trying to decipher. But our instructor, who was patient to a tee, had already covered off on capsizing. Oh! So that was possible, right?

Plus that knife taped to the tiller is for what? To cut myself loose if