Sailing in Sydney Harbour

Um… guys.. I kinda helped race a sailboat in the Sydney Harbour… and our team won.  I reckon it was a massive fluke because I’ve only got one week’s experience and that’s being way too kind… I hit the race with about 40 minutes TOTAL experience and managed to not flip the boat.  So, in actuality, it’s a win-win!

At first the boat looks like this:  It reminds me of a giant 3-D puzzle and if you look inside the boat, it kinda looks like coloured spaghetti in a bowl. Each wire and each rope has a name and some sort of function, too!

Once we got the boat put together, it looked something like this: And, then after a little bit of training for me on dry land, we headed into the harbour.  It’s a two person boat and my responsibility was to make sure that the boat never flipped.   That being said, we had to adjust our bodyweight to the wind.  Basically, the wind can tip the boat right over, so we need to adjust our body weight and the sails to make sure it stays level in the water.  Here we are really leaning out, but sometimes that just doesn’t cut it.  I needed to actually stand off the side of the boat whilst hanging from a trapeze and hoist all my bodyweight over the edge so the boat wouldn’t flip.  I am literally hanging off the side of the boat… So the thing is, you have to go from side to side of the boat and you need to move the sails so it can catch the wind; basically,  you are constantly crawling under the sail.  This is pretty much the biggest chance that the boat will flip, but if you keep your wits and lean your bodyweight to counterbalance the boat, the boat will stay upright.  After about two hours, the race was finished and we were victorious with a win.  The other team had a slight mishap and flipped the boat.  I didn’t realise until sailing today that flipping boats is actually quite common.  I saw about four in the water that were upside down. So, it’s safe to say, every sailor flips!  Who knew!