A day out at sea (25 Mar 2007)

After a long time, I've got an opportunity to unwind and try out a new sport this weekend - Sailing !

TamilNadu Sailing Association was conducting a one day familiarization in sailing within the Chennai harbor (came in Hindu a week back). There were a group of 17 including us (three of us) coming from different domains - all with a passion of sailing in the sea. The fee is Rs. 1000, but as one of the member (Ravi) from the association pointed out, it's much more costly in other countries to try out sailing.

Learn more about sailing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing

There are different sailing boats - Optimist is the one used by the kids in the age of 8 to 14.

We got opportunity to sail in Laser (one person) and Enterprise (two person) boats. They also demonstrated capsizing and what to do when the boat is capsized.

It's really amazing to see how the boats move so fast without any energy but just the wind. It looks simple to just manage the rope in one hand to Sheet in/Sheet out and rudder in another hand to change the direction of the boat - but it requires you to understand the wind direction and speed to really sail successfully. There are different terminologies used for the direction you sail with respect to the wind (Run - 180 degrees, Reach - 90 degrees). Other terminologies : Port - left side of the boat with respect to the wind Starboard - right side of the boat with respect to the wind.

What does it give : Sailing in the sea gives you a sense of satisfaction and achievement - it can be equated to riding a car in a road - but this is in a different surface and based on the external nature power - the wind !

As Captain Munna Jamal said, for kids it gives a lot of confidence as they take DECISIONS to manage the boat on their own. It also gives rise to team work when a group of people sail together.

I got a hit on the forehead when turning the laser boat for the first time - didn't realize I had to down my head as the sheet moves from one side to the other. Subsequently the boat was capsized and I had stranded in the water for more than 5 mins as they had to repair the laser boat - floating in the sea water was also a nice experience (with life jacket ofcourse) which I had experience once already arranged by Sterling Resort, Mahabalipuram. Also, I had body pain as I tried to balance the boat with my weight (?) - you would have noticed the familiar pose of a person bending in parallel to the water when sailing - but I had fun. No pain, no gain :-)

TNSA does one day sailing classes for Corporates and individual bunch of people (as we did) though their main objective is to train kids for competition.

Contact :
shantha.ravikumar@gmail.com

I can assure you it's a rewarding experience to go out and sail ! I look forward to an opportunity to go and sail on my own out there in the sea (this was done inside the harbor where there was not much waves - doing it in the actual sea would be much more fun) !!!

Some pictures taken : http://picasaweb.google.com/psk6629/SailingMar07