THE BOAT PEOPLE

Take the wheel, nothing to it, almost like driving a car.
That’s what the skipper of the 32-foot sailboat told me in the middle of the Bay harbor.
I took the wheel. It was not like driving a car. It was more like driving a bronco.
Water does not behave like paved cement, particularly in winds up to 20 miles per hour.

The wind conspired with the water to toss our craft this way and that way. No matter how the boat pitched, yawed and rolled. I was in command every moment. I was ten feet tall, the captain of the open sea.

I was enjoying my role, particularly since I had both the skip and Slim , his one-man crew, close at hand. Four extra eyes and years of experience at my side were most reassuring.
Their voices were calm, knowing, instructive: “A little to port – that’s right -- back to starboard – right, no sweat, just imagine you’re driving a car.”

The wheel continued to fight me, the winds tore at me, the spray sprayed me, but I plowed on serenely, fearlessly. That is, until the skip and Slim started for the bow, stopping only long enough to say, “Nothing to it, just hold ‘er steady, gotta attend to the sails, be back in a couple of shakes.”


I was alone. All alone with a bucking beast. No soft, instructive words to guide me. My bravado rapidly left me. It took all of a second before the naval hero, Captain of the seas, became a quivering mass of jelly.
Spray had clouded the windshield, making visibility almost non-existent. I also began to realize that I had not the foggiest notion of distances on water or who had the right of way on the ‘open’ sea.

My hands began to sweat, my throat constricted, and inside my body I could hear a sledgehammer pounding away. I heard a strange voice shouting hoarsely, “Hurry up, hurry up, can’t see a damn thing out there.” It was my voice. Their voices came back calmly, “You’re doing fine, just keep it up,” and with that said, they kept on fooling with jib and mainsail. These guys are trying to commit suicide and I’m the fall guy, I thought .

By sheer willpower I managed to control the boat and myself. I expertly missed one boat by inches and was preparing to explore the insides of another, when my “crew” came galloping back on the double. “Nothing to it,” I said happily through the wind as I gratefully gave up command of the ship.

We were on the water close to six hours. During most of those hours we were busy avoiding other boats and getting thoroughly soaked.
I learned a few things. I learned that a boat is definitely not a car. That surplus wind in the sails on a windy day was a no-no and that reefing is done to spill wind out of the sails. I further learned that there is no left, right, front or back the moment you step into a boat. I learned to replace these with, starboard – port – bow – and stern. Sailor types speak a strange language. I call it ‘sailese’. It is full of words like wind, tack, winch, rudder, tiller, jib, mainsail, and reefing, to mention just a few. Wind is a favorite word however. The wind is up, the wind is down, too much wind, the wind is coming in from the south, north, east or west, so on and on. Sailors instinctively know that we came out of the sea originally and they want to go back again and again and yet again. The deficit, war or peace, spouses and all manner of things, play second fiddle to the sea.

I staggered into my car and drove away. There was nothing to it. As a matter of fact, it was just like driving a car. Anchors away, I shouted as I sailed away through the wind like a breeze.