This past Saturday, I headed out to the boathouse as the wind was picking up and was planning on taking my buddy Steve sailing. They were having a regatta with the 420's and the only one left was a cannibalized boat with no forestay. Thus there was no sleek Jr racer for me today. I shrug, look in my wallet and still can't find my card. So I try and remember my number, to no avail and resign myself to getting a replacement card.

I see that there's two sonars availible on the mooring, so I request to take one out. The launch captain tells me to get my crew and lifejackets. So I grab a pair of pfd's and got to the launch and start to get in. Steve follows. The people at the boathouse frown at Steve for not having any shoes, but the launch captain shrugs, "next time" he says. Steve gets in the boat.

We ride out to the mooring, an instructor who just landed is partially taking down the sails. I ask him what the weather is like, he says "WINDY", and reccomends that I depower the rigging and proceeds to quickly start giving me advice on backstay tension, outhaul trim, and how to use the traveler, in these conditions. Huh, I'm rather overwhelmed, so I look kind of perpelexed, and ask him for a lesson. He says he needs to go back to the dock to get some water. The launch captain asks if I have a full keelboat rating, I say no, he shakes his head. The instructor finishes getting off the boat and onto the launch. Switching places, Steve and I scramble from the launch boat to the boat on the mooring.

I raise the main and take their advice not to hoist the jib. I pull it down, furl it, and tie it to to the deck, and then pull the the main back up. I slowly explain to Steve what to do and have him cast the bowline off the mooring. The boat, sans-jib, hesitates a bit, then catches the wind. The boat feels funny without a headsail. I barely avoid a windsurfer heading out the inlet.

Steve and I head across the water, the wind is blowing quite well, but we're still not moving too well. I tell Steve to hoist the jib. He pulls on the sheets, the ties on the deck quickly release the sail from it's furling. I'm impressed that steve didn'th have to climb onto the deck to untie the knots. Without too much fanfare pulls up the halyard. I quickly explain how to use the winches and how to set the jib. He picks it up quickly. Because of the wind the sail is difficult to pull in. I show him a few tricks to using the winches and the cleats.

As always I get a phone call on the water, it's James, wondering what I'm up to. I tell him I'm out sailing, and that he is free to come down. He agrees. I point the boat towards the dock. I can see him on the dock, I yell to him to grab a life jacket. I sail up, he heads one way up the dock. I yell at the dock staff what to do, they're unresponsive. I yell again, if I can pick up passengers on the dock, knowing that they've started to frown on such practices. Someone says okay. So I turn around and head for the far end of the Longfellow end of the dock. James is on the other side of the club. Doh, he's heading the wrong way. I pull the boat on the dock, one of the staff comes and helps me with the bowline. I can't see James. He's on the other side getting a life jacket. I ask the dock staff what they want me to do, he just motions to push me off. I signal James to hurry up. At least he's got shoes on.

Only after James has gotten on the boat and the sun has moved closer to the horizon do I see that there's a hole right below the waterline of the bow. I can see light shining into the front hold. That's not good. I wonder how that's happened. I know I haven't hit anything, so it must have been there when I checked the boat out. Shoot.... Thank goodness I've got the damage waiver. Perhaps next year I should buy a lifetime membership to compensate for all the damage I've done to the boats. Seriously I didn't cause that hole!

The race is right outside the main dock, for easy viewing pleasure, unfortunately it also happened to be right in the path I needed to get away from the dock. I head out and get entangled in the 420 race, the leader waves his fist at me. The follower motions to keep going. What am I doing headed towards the race? I tack away from them, they tack towards me... What??? I can't turn away from them so simply pull in the sail, and we maintain our distance, and head out.

Safely past them, I hear one of the 420 helmsman commanding to gybe. Then I hear a whip, followed by a "CRACK!", someone screams "ouch!" I look back and see the helmsan of the boat that's turned away from me rubbing his head. I yell out "are you okay?" He sheepishly looks away from me. He's still sailing. So I keep going.

The wind was good, James seems to enjoy himself, the same skippers I always seem to see, are out on the water. They know more about sail trim than I do, as always Irene passes me, I look bad, they look smug. We head back, and leave the boat on the dock for the next party. I report the damage. The staff shrugs, hands me the damage report, and starts to tell me various other stories, about the holes in the racers. I sigh, it's been a pretty good day out, and the bottle of sunscreen I'd bought at the beginning of the season is almost empty.