Sailing Samurai: 'Life at the Pointy End'

After returning home from Rio, I was keen to build on the skills I had learned with Clipper. It wasn't until my first Boat Show after I had come home that I made some contacts that would allow me to get out on the water again.

I initially tried to put my name down with local sailing clubs here in Essex. Curiously there was no response. A friend I met through Clipper told me of a skipper who chartered a boat through Sunsail, and put together a 'scratch' crew for each of the racing weekends that Sunsail organised in the Solent. It sounded great, so I 'made my mark' and waited for joining instructions!

On a breezy Friday evening, I made my way down to Port Solent to Sunsail HQ to join the boat. I met Neil, the skipper (and organiser of the weekend). A very straight-talking gent, with a strong southern African accent (Rhodesian actually)! After a 'sensible' evening in the club house we all bunked down in our yacht.

Our yacht was a Beneteau First 40. I was amazed at the comfort below decks! I think having spent the past two years sailing on stripped down racing yachts, built by the lowest bidder, it felt like I was being spoilt with all the luxury! (auto-heads, heaters, 'recreational' radio/CD player and double bunks!! Despite the roaring winds outside, I enjoyed a very comfortable and peaceful sleep in my snug Guass sleeping bag!

Keeping look out whilst we manoeuvre to the start line!

The next morning we were all up 6:30am sharp! Doing boat prep, and having a few 'dry runs' at some spinnaker pole work. I had foolishly admitted to being happy to work anywhere on the boat (when asked about preferred sailing position). This meant that I was volunteered instantly for the Bow!

Bow work was not an alien concept as I had done a bit on the 68's with Clipper. The difference this time is that I would not have 3 other crew to bounce ideas/questions off of! I would be there on my own, except for the Mastman (Jamie), who had similar experience level to me so had his hands full! The scale of everything was a bit smaller. This also meant that manoeuvres had to be completed 'double quick' as we were 'racing around the cans'. Gone are the days where I was on a boat that set a 'point of sail' for days on end. The action would be very sharp and very quick!

As learning curves go, it didn't get any uglier than this! There was a bit of a rolling swell that day on the Solent meaning I was doing everything I could to remain upright on the front of the boat during manoeuvres! As someone has once described it, it was like being on a seesaw, in a washing machine, on high spin!

I had been warned about Neil's 'temper', so when the air started to turn blue with instructions being shouted from the cockpit, I was not entirely surprised! Everything that could go wrong went wrong! Lines got crossed and knotted (seemingly all by themselves). On the launch/hoist of the Spinnaker, I nearly lost the spinnaker bag over the side! (Major sin!!)

As the day wore on, our (or rather my) performance gradually improved, we started to stop coming last! I was determined to learn and suck up this experience! There were times were I totally f##ked things up, and all I could do was hold my hands up and walk back to cockpit and apologise to everyone for my error. There were a great deal of sympathetic nods and winks and I knew I was looking at some former bowmen/bow-women who had had the same experience that I was having today and did not want to swap with me!

It sounds like a terrible experience, but sometimes in life we tend to get the exam first, with the lesson given afterwards! This was very much the case for this particular day! On the Saturday night the whole crew went to Tiger Tiger at Gunwhalf Quay and needless to say we had a fantastic meal and evening out! Everyone bought me a beer and congratulated me on surviving what had been a very tough day!

It has now been a year since that tough weekend! There have been others since then, but that was my first experience of 'life at the pointy end'. Everyone weekend I am sailing I always volunteer to go on the bow. Does this make me some kind of sadist?

I think for me it is one of those places on the boat that quickly disintegrates into utter chaos! But there is something very satisfactory in salvaging some order from that chaos! I have found that good visualisation is key when prepping sails and lines. I have had some great help/tutoring from some very inspirational bowman(Al, Darren, Steve-J to name a few).

I have found though that the bow is only as good as his or her mast/pit team! And that is the key...Good communication and good team work. A bit of swearing is never meant (or taken) personally. It just conveys the 'urgency' of how quick things need to happen!

For me, It is without a doubt the most fun sailing position on a racing boat! Here's to getting 'wet and wild' in the near future!!