Today was a great day of sailing. We had 7 boats in the water, 6 of them skippered by cadets...all skippers completed the "Clock Drill" (link) and almost all cadets took a turn skippering a boat. There was also one ugly ducking in the flock, FJ#4 was sailed by Coach King and LCDR Tyson... hey we like to have some fun once in a while, too!
This photo shows Coach King leading the sailors thru a GYBE... in light wind, it's easy but we want to be ready for stronger winds, right??!? BTW where was FJ#2 and why were they not in this picture?
What does the "Clock Drill" accomplish? It puts the boat(s) on everypoint of sail, and the boat(s) must both tack & gybe to sail around the circle. At the beginning of today's exercise, not every skipper knew the difference between tacking & gybing; but by the end of the sailing session we were not only tacking smoothly, gybing with good control (most of us).
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We also got a chance to practice the RIGHT-OF-WAY rules! Coach King spent most of the session looking backwards (offering helpful advice to the student sailors) but that is no excuse for getting in a collision! But wait a minute... isn't the R-O-W vessel supposed to take avoiding action when it becomes obvious that the one who is supposed to give way isn't ?? ok it wasn't really a COLLISION more of a gentle bump. Still, not good!
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If we can get in some more practice this fall, we are ready to begin some sailing games. This might include some racing... although clearly none of the cadets are ready for the big league, since Coach King and the Commander were easily faster while looking backwards & giving instructions... and working on finer points of control such as sailing backwards.
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Not such a great photo, but it was taken with a cell phone while skippering an FJ... that Coach King is full of excuses! This picture shows close action with all the Javelins together, they are moving right along in this light air.
Still, it's possible to stall the boat and stop accidentally. We are seeing less & less of this sloppy boat-handling as we make progress. The fact that all the boats kept together, all the boats completed the drills (umm, wait, did every boat do a STOP at a buoy?), and everybody got a chance to skipper, shows that we're moving forward on this!
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All good things come to an end.
It's well into autumn, the sun set at 1708 this evening (that's 5:08 pm to you civilians) and we were already putting the boats away. There will be less & less time after school BUT with any luck at all, we can get in a few more sailing days this semester!
Thanks to Coach Drew McCrocklin for all the photos (except for the cell phone shot).
Now remember, we will also have AT LEAST one more written assignment to turn in this semester! If you have work to turn in, do so... not everybody is going to pass this sailing course and turning in assignments doesn't hurt your chances.
... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King