Just call me Charlie Brown

Departure: 5:30pm
Return: 8:00pm
Weather conditions: puffy clouds, light winds
Tide: high
Boat: Club Dinghy (Walker Bay)
Crew: 1 (Woody)

Do you remember how Charlie Brown gets suckered into trying to kick the football while Lucy holds it for him? Every time, she pulls the ball away and he flies through the air landing on his back. I'm the Charlie Brown of sailing.

I get ideas from all my reading and daydreaming and they just don't pan out. Take sailboat racing for instance. We all recall the fiasco in May and June when I tried to race my home-built boat in the dinghy races. If you don't, go back and read my posts; I'm not going to waste time here repeating the details.

Well as luck would have it (bad luck), they had another series of races in August. I didn't find out about it until three had passed and I'll miss the last. Not being well served by memory, I got to thinking. I thought that maybe, if I used another boat, I could do better. The only other dinghy I have access to is the club dinghy - an 8' walker bay. Theoretically it should point closer to the wind, and it has a center board instead of a lee-board so both tacks would be equal. Hey! Maybe I could be a bit more competitive so I signed up.

The day of the race was looking really good. The sky was cloudy but there was a good steady wind throughout the day. I didn't care if I won, I just wanted to finish respectfully and with a wind like this and a legitimate boat, I could do it.

Or could I?

The wind dropped off a bit as I motored down to the marina, but it was still blowing and I was still hopeful. However, by the time I'd rigged the boat it was feeling pretty light and looking patchy out on the water. It was downhill from there.

By the time the races started, it was quite calm. The races started later than I'd thought and I was already tired of twisting around in the tiny cockpit of the boat. An 8' dinghy is not a large boat for a man who's 6'5" tall and weighs about 250lbs. Add a sail to that and it's downright awkward. To avoid the boom while taking, I had to double over and my choices for sitting were to sit on my shins with an arm twisted behind my back to guide the tiller or to lay over the thwart on one side. It got old.

The light winds made my start difficult and I was the only 8' dinghy racing. The other boats were all larger lasers or regular sailboats. The wind continued to get lighter until I finally quite and drifted home.

I was very frustrated as you can tell from the tone of the entry (and that's after a day to recover).