Turning William into a sailor

I took Mirriam, Emily and William out on Sea Puppy today. It was an interesting day in more ways than one. We made a convert to sailing and I learned some lessons I should have already known.

William had a very bad first experience with sailing (very bad case of moition sickness) and has been very forcefull in his resistance to going out sailing since.

Talk about your epic tantrums. Anyway Mirriam is working hard to help him overcome this fear before it becomes a long term problem. I knew he was going to be a handfull when I agreed to let him go sailing with us. There isn’t much on earth as loud as a young child who is scared of something and doesn’t want to go. To be honest for a little bit I started to want to just crawl inside myself and turn the noise off 🙂 He has a pair of lungs and an impressive streak of stubborn in using them.

Instead of motoring straight out to the ocean (which is his particular fear.. waves and such) I put up sail in the waterway. There wasn’t much wind but it was strong enough to move us at 2 to 3 knots. It also was very unalarming sailing for william.

Between a combination of threats of punishment if he didn’t quit throwing a temper tantrum and us continually pointing out neat stuff like crab pots and birds and other boats we slowly got him more interested in his surroundings than in throwing the temper tantrum. By the time we go out to the jetties he was fully involved in using Emilys new digital camera and having a blast eracing all the pictures he took. 🙂 A serious photographer he isn’t!

It was a bit iffy when we went out he jetties onto the ocean.. but we found the next new distraction for him almost by accident.. actually the next two distractions. I recent installed a Garmin GPS/Fishfinder unit on Sea Puppy. When William found out you could see fish on the screen as you went over them he was sold.. he became the official fish finder boy. The second thing was the head on the boat.. I’m going to have to empty the holding tank before I take her out again. He must have used the head 7 times in 2 or 3 hours just so he could pump it out.

The next day I heard that he had been bragging to everyone that he is now a sailor. 🙂 And he now wants to go the the stead bonnet race in south port on a sail boat.. 🙂 of course this is a pirate race so that might have something to do with it. It’s kinda neat to see a young child get over a fear like that and see it start to turn into an enthusiasm.

Through all of this Emily was mostly a good sport. 🙂

As older sister she did have to pick at william a few times through the day but on average she worked with us to make it a good experience for him. Also as has been said before when she has sailed on Sea Puppy she is a good addition to the crew as a sailor.

Miriam had her hands full dealing with it all but I have the feeling she was pretty happy with the outcome of the day. William getting over his fear of sailing is a fairly big thing.

While we were out we ended up sailing beside Sea Haven and Angela for a bit. Actually they are very promenent in later parts of the days’ story also.

I got a couple good shots of the sun behind sea puppys sails also

Now for lessons learned.. We were motoring back up the waterway and the engine died in the middle of the crossroads. The current was inbound so carrying us the way we needed to go but we had a mild breeze pushing us to the east bank of the waterway. Lesson learned .. don’t mess around, just put the anchor out. We were moving so slow I thought I could play with the engine for a couple minutes with out anchoring. I actually put the jib out once and sailed us back to the upwind side of the channel and then furled it back and worked on the engine again.. This time I let us get to close to the bank when we drifted back accross the channel and we grounded. There was no danger this time as the conditions were so mild. But after it happened it made me think about how it would have turned out under slightly worse conditions.

Just before we drifted aground I had given up on the engine and called Angela on Sea Haven and she was motoring to us to give us a tow. She got there as I was grounding. I had already rigged two of my 25 ft+ 5/8inch dock lines together for a tow rope, and attempted to throw them to her as she passed us.. 🙁 they didn’t reach the 65 feet to where she was. Between the first and second throw we grounded and brushd up against the bank and an over hanging dead tree. The tree actaully let me push us back away from the shore and I got the rope ready for another throw.. Angela came in a little farther this time and i put the rope right across her arms. She wasn’t able to get it on a cleat before her boat now moving away pulled it out of her hands. Once more I quickly coiled it up and again on the next pass put it right into her arms. this time she was moving slower and was able to get it on a cleat… 🙂 you would think the drama was over… when she put it on the cleat she did it quickly so as not to lose it like the last time and it ended up over her stern railing and somehow wrapped around her rudder. She is getting ready to engage her engine and start pulling when I see this and start hollering no!! stop… lol.. once aware of it she quickly got it re-rigged and took us under tow. Pulling us at a moderate 3 to 4 knots she pulled us all the way to the marina and leaving us with about a knot of forward speed dropped the tow on my mark as we passed in front of my slip.. All in all a very uneventfull docking.. 🙂

If I had it all to do over again I would have done one of two things.

1. I would put sail up and just kept sailing her up the waterway till someone could take me under tow to get me into my slip.
2. I would just put out the anchor and then worked on the engine and or waited on someone to take me under tow.

Drifting like I did while working on the motor in a restricted waterway like that wasn’t the best choice.

The next day I worked on the engine some.. I found a little water in the fuel and also some debries.. I It also looks like the fuel pump died and or there might be some blockage in the carberator.. So it is still down and waiting to be fixed.

I actually left the below as a comment under this post but thought it deserved to be added to the end of the post.

I wrote this post a couple days after the events happened one evening. I was tired and not at the top of my admittedly sad game in writting it. So I wanted to come back and put this addendum to the story in.

 As I read back on what I had written in the post I find my account is a little more negative seeming than It really was. The whole experience with william was a positive growth experience. The begining of it was uncomfortable. I think everyone wants to get away from the loudly crying child while it is going on. However the sum of the whole experience also deals with the growth as a person that william went through. This was an cool thing to see and be involved in. It reminds me of when I was a little older than him and dealing with a petrifying fear of bees and wasps. I can remember my mother working with me to overcome that. And I will always be glad of it as I no longer have a fear of them because she took the effort to work with me on it then.