I'll start with an apology... to quote Bob Seger, "'Cause it sounds like a long song comin'".
Hello all, my name is Ty. I live in Michigan just North of Ann Arbor. Like many of these introductions, I've always wished I could sail. Just assumed it was out of my financial reach. (and figured my wife would balk at the idea).
On labor day 2020 we were at a beach on Lake Huron, I had binoculars out watching a sailboat glide by a little off shore. My wife says, "I bet they're having fun". So I went ahead and told her that I thought sailing would be a great idea for when we, eventually, retire. Instead of scoffing, she surprised me, "hmm, I can actually see us doing that. We discussed the
learning curve and the fact that we couldn't just retire, buy a
boat and cast off. She said I should look into it and figure it out.
I started searching for sailing information. Since then I've been reading, watching and digesting everything I could find about how to sail, learn to sail, improve your sailing, etc. I was about 20 minutes into searching when I found this site. (I've been lurking here, all but wearing out that search function, ever since) It's taken me this long to find a local sailing club that offers a program that, I'm hopeful, I can actually pull off with my hectic and sometimes unpredictable
work schedule. I am the Executive
Chef at a banquet hall.
Last week on a
cruise vacation, we rented a 4 person
hobie cat. As stated, been researching this for over two years, so I felt justified saying "yes, I know how to sail". (It's not my fault they didn't ask if I actually HAVE sailed). I was given explicit instructions on where in the bay I was allowed to go and told if I screwed up, they'd know I didn't really know what I was doing and I'd be towed back and not get a refund. That didn't happen so I count it as a win. We got the
boat back to the beach to return it almost exactly at the hour mark that I had paid for. Also a win in my eyes. Small victories aside, I did get stuck in irons more times than I'd like to admit and had one pretty uncontrolled jibe. All in all I was pretty happy with the result considering my experience level (none).
The best part was when my wife told me that she's even more excited to take lessons now. She's confident that with practice, and some actual instruction, we're going to have a lot of fun sailing. We're now registered for
classes starting in late May. If I can pass the course, we'll have access to the club fleet of Interlake 18s on a moderate size inland lake near our home. We can spend the Summer making sure we really enjoy it and that I don't, you know, suck at it. Then maybe look into
buying a
trailer sailor down the road. I figure I've got about 10 years to
work my way up to a cruising boat in
retirement.
I'm sure it will be quite some time before I have anything to really contribute here so I hope I'm forgiven for the LONG intro. (it has been over 2 years in the making after all) Mostly I wanted to finally sign up and say thank you to all of you who make this site such a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
Thank again for letting me ramble,
Ty