We're hard at work finally, putting the new site look up, and making sure all the content is fresh and newly updated. Please bear with us over the next week or two if you find something missing or a broken link or two. We are working hard to get caught up so if something doesn't work right today, please check back tomorrow!
If you're looking around for a few of the sections we had before, I'm sorry to say that some of them are just plain gone. I decided it was time to narrow the focus of the site a bit to make sure we can really do a good job of covering the things we kept around. We were getting a little thin before, trying to offer something for everyone. We've got a new sitemap here though, so you can see all the sections.
On a trip to the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Bora Bora, we happened across a New Zealand based tallship named the Soren Larsen. The Soren Larsen was tied up in Papeete, Tahiti, undergoing a refit. We had the good luck of being able to spend some time talking with some of the crew, and discovered that this vessel is geared around giving normal folks a chance to learn to sail by participating as crew.
This vessel is a 290 ton displacement, 145 foot tallship that looks as if it just sailed out of the pages of a history book. You should definitely visit the site dedicated to this ship, and learn more about the voyage. Who knows, you may even decide to book a berth on an upcoming leg of the trip. Last we checked, they were currently in Australian waters.
I got the sailing bug just some years ago, on a day excursion off of an Eastern Caribbean cruise. While I'm not sure that experience really truly qualifies as "sailing", you might get a kick out of the story anyway...
"So, do I need to know anything about sailing to use this thing," I asked the man who was renting me the small sunfish sailboat. "Oh man, you're a funny guy," he laughed, assuming I was kidding him. I wasn't. My wife and I were on a tiny scrap of an island off the Dominican Republic called Serena Cay. The cruise ship we had come there on stood at anchor off in the distance. But now I was the Captain, and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I figured as we pushed off that I would probably be able to go away from shore, as the breeze was going that way, but I was a little worried about what I was going to do when the time came to return the tiny craft to shore. In the back of my mind I was certain that there would be some form of rescue available in case we were totally unable to get back, but I certainly didn't want to have to endure the ribbing I knew I would take for the rest of the cruise if that were to happen. We were travelling with another couple that we had known for years and I knew that a rescue would set me up for an enormous amount of good natured ridicule for a long time to come.
The little boat caught the breeze quickly as we pushed away from shore and in a few minutes I had us a couple hundred yards out, tacking slightly across the breeze. My wife sat facing me, reclined on the deck of the little boat, enjoying the experience in that carefree way that she seems to manage in almost every situation. I was trying to get the hang of coordinating the tension on the sail with the pressure on the rudder, and starting to feel that I was doing quite well at it, when a sudden gust caught me off guard. I started to lose my balance as the boat heeled with the wind and the next thing I knew I was sliding off the side into the warm Caribbean water. With a startled little squeak, my wife quickly followed me into the drink as the little boat tipped past the point of no return and capsized.
Luckily, we quickly discovered that some patient tugging on the side of the tiny craft turned it right-side up and before long we were back under way. In no time at all, I was starting to feel more confident, and soon had us heeled comfortably to the side and racing across the wind. And when our rented hour with the tiny boat came to an all too early end, I was even able to tack back and forth into the wind, working us close into shore. At the end of it all, I was hooked on sailing. But to this day, I remember just how confusing my initial introduction was, and with that in mind we've started our "Getting Started Sailing" section. If you're brand new to the sport, this might be a good section for you to check out.
Now, I've worked my way up past the Sunfish stage. My boat is now a Santana 22, currently berthed at the Great Salt Lake Marina State Park. The Great Salt Lake is an inland sea that gets very little respect as bodies of water go, but it has a robust sailing community and is also home to the Great Salt Lake Yacht Club, a yacht club that has actually been around since its original establishment clear back in 1877. The club was legally incorporated in 1932 and continues to operate today under that same charter, making it one of the oldest clubs in the United States.
Anytime you head out onto the water, safety should be a primary concern. With that in mind, we've got some of what we consider to be vital gear linked here. You never plan on going overboard, and with proper precautions, it may never happen to you. But if you do happen to get tossed over the side sometime, your PFD better not be stowed below decks because it's too cumbersome to wear. The new automatic inflatable PFD's are designed to be light enough that you soon forget you have it on.