Monday 9 March 2015

For the simple sake of the thing


Yesterday was an unanticipated treat.

The forecast hadn't carried much promise; frontal, dull, cloudy, wet, but not a huge amount of wind and dropping into the afternoon. Hels said she'd be free to sail with me, so I pretty much defaulted to turning up at Frampton to race the Ent. I was of a mood where I could more or less take it or leave it. Fixated as I seem to be on Calstar at the moment, there was a degree of bathos attached to the idea of sailing Buffy again.

The weather rolled in as expected. A good F4 across lunchtime, but fading. Cloudy and dull, but not much of the promised rain. We rigged, launched, set our watches for the starting line, and it was like throwing a switch. I had a great time. It wasn't great Enterprise weather, not strong enough to plane consistently, not light enough to leave the smaller, lighter single-handers stuck in the water. We had a great start for both races, but only an average result for each by the end.

But somewhere in the second race, with the wind dropping, the late afternoon sun now breaking through the murk overhead, it really struck me how good it was just to be out there. An eye on the sails, the tell-tails whispering their shifty secrets, an eye on the water, trying to tune to the next gust, the next lift or header, and the little boat leaping along gallantly whenever I got it right, or more often chiding me when I invariably didn't.

There is a beautiful simplification, a purity to be found in sailing. I've known this for some time now, and wouldn't have thought I'd ever of needed reminding. But yesterday's reminder was good.

As we tied Buffy down in her berth and headed home, the dusk-gloamed sky was glowing as if with the shared satisfaction of a day well had.

No comments: