The Novice sailing course was launched about 25 years ago, but this is the first time that Christa was at the helm. Christa’s is a brave undertaking: I know how difficult it is to get one nine-year old to make his bed on his own, or put his dirty clothes into the laundry bin. Christa’s task was to teach about twenty nine-year olds in their Optimists to sail a triangular course in 50 km/ph south-easterly winds on Zeekoevlei. It’s inconceivable that anyone less than Wonderwoman would take this on, but miraculously, after a few weeks, we witnessed our kids bravely and confidently rigging their boats, setting sail, and completing their triangular course. I’m not a sailor myself, and have had difficulty working out how anyone (let alone a nine-year old) could manage to complete the course.  I consulted one of the Novices. This is how it’s done:

Gybing: when you pull the tiller towards you and the boat swings round and leaves the boom there for a couple of seconds and swings around just as you lift your head in time to get a bruise on your forehead.

Tacking is the opposite of gybing where you push the tiller away from you and the boat swings around and the same goes for the boom.

OK pretend you’ve got a steering wheel that only goes from side to side and it’s behind you and it’s like a stick and wait, you want to know the difference between a rudder and a tiller? The tiller is attached to the steering wheel which has an extension called the tiller extension; you use that to pull and push which makes you go right to left. The rudder is the steering wheel, basically, that’s the stick part. OK look. Wait, I’ll make a hand diagram …

Running is OK say that when there’s a South-Easter and you set out to the lake at Zeekoevlei, well, no OK what you do you carry on going in a straight line and now the wind should be from behind you and this is where you carry on going in a straight line and the wind is behind you and this is running.

Beating, if you want to know about that OK beating is where you’re out in the lake and there’s a South-Easter and you’re going towards the shore and you’re at a 90 degree angle from the wind. That’s it.

Reaching? I don’t know, you can ask Dad … [five minutes later] … Erase that … Reaching is where OK you’re going in a straight line and then the wind is coming and hitting the side of the boat making you go forwards, strangely.

Thank you Christa, and also Alan: you have taught the Novices not only to sail, but to develop those all-important life-skills of self-confidence, responsibility and independence. You have given our kids a taste of freedom.

By Carrol Clarkson