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24 April 2005
Fast Cat Training 23 April
On any learning curve there is a point at which even the most profoundly inept student has a 'light bulb' moment. A good friend of mine was struggling with the concept of apparent wind (as I am sure we all have at some stage or another). No amount of endless reiteration and emphatic explanations could permeate their personal fog of conceptual constipation. Diagrams, demonstrations expensive sailing literature failed spectacularly to foster even a glimmer of hope. It transpired that the simple substitution of the word 'apparent' with the word 'relative' suddenly caused the gears to mesh and the ensuing warm glow of understanding bathed this student of sailing with the reward of increased understanding. This of course precipitating progress to the next imponderable property of physics.
Therefore to create understanding it is not enough to disseminate data, the gift of teaching is finding the keys that unlock the doors. DSC was given such a treasure trove of gems courtesy of Mr D Findlay. The white wizard of Fast Cats donated a day of his valuable time to shine the bright light of knowledge upon 14 souls. Don spoke with his measured and gentle tones and the group were quickly under his spell.
We would begin to hone our sailing skills with 4 simple exercises on the water. Wielding his power from a rescue rib Don fashioned a small rectangle with the rib forming one corner and three small buoys as the other corners. The task was to sail into 'the box' and stay in it a long as possible. The wind was a kindly 2-3 so plenty of potential power to play with. 7 Catamarans approached the box from different directions, then a comedy of posturing, dithering and manoeuvring ensued. One Cat sailed over a corner marker buoy and wrapped the mooring rope around a dagger board. In the path of an awesome Nacra 6.0 the hapless F18 ground to a halt. A very impressive move as the aim of the game was to hold the boat still. An expensive collision was avoided by mere microns.
[Why this picture? Well, it has one of the participating boats, two of the sailors, and a large orange buoy. Ed]
The club Captain jumped into the water to free the snared Cat and the exercise continued like a fairground dodgems. The next task was to sail close-hauled and throw in a 360. A rapid tack, bear-away into a power gibe to screw the boat around the daggers then harden up and sail off again on the same tack. A correct 360 should be a tack and a gibe, or a gibe then a tack and take a mere 40 seconds or so allegedly. Not as some would have it to manoeuvre from port tact to a starboard tack in a pretty loop and pretend that will suffice. What followed was 20 minutes of catamarans and their crews pirouetting maniacally with varying degrees of incompetence.
Task 3 was to sail in echelon formation, a lead boat would sail a steady course at moderate pace and the remaining 6 would sail a close overlap in staggered formation. I would have to say that the DSC performed well which was quite staggering, could have been closer and more synchronised, but generally not too shabby.
Finally the rapid-fire race-start round. Race starts at 2-minute intervals. For any race team on the water that may have felt the cold this certainly notched up the pulse rate. Start a race as close to the line as physically possible, then sail back around and start again. This was the class's opportunity to show what skills they had learnt in the previous three lessons. Boat position, control and slowing down, holding a position and moving under control. We got a well deserved "Could do better" from our wise mentor.
Knowledge is a commodity that in our modern life is packaged and marketed and metered out at a price. Don's love and enthusiasm for the sport of sailing is so great that he takes his payment in seeing the joy it brings to others and that is in itself is priceless. Thanks to Don Findlay for his time and wisdom. Thanks to our club Captain Richard Stacey who rescued Wild Cat (yes twas I... and ...crew) from the snare and thanks for driving the rib (it transpired that Don was significantly more impressed with Richards rib driving than he was with our sailing). Finally thanks to Alasdair Davidson for facilitating this fun filled fact founded feature.
Mark Emptage
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