The Sunfish

The midwest isn't really a place where you find a lot of sailing enthusiasts. It's much more of a pontoon-boat slash power-boat kind of place. People want the raw power of two two-stroke engines belching foul fuel-oil exhaust behind them as they drag their friends and loved ones across their local lakes.

That's a tough thing to do with the six knots that most sailboats can manage.

But there is something thrilling about catching the wind in your sail and feeling the centerboard jerk into place and you start skimming across the water on nothing more than God's good grace and more luck than you'd count on in the casino.

Although it spent most of its life parked idly beside the backyard vegetable garden, the times that I was able to take the Sunfish out on Lake Springfield were memorable and in many cases magical.

The Sunfish was a ten-foot training sailboat with a removable centerboard, a clunky wooden tiller and just about enough room for two adults. It was cat-rigged, which meant that it had the stereotypical sail arrangement that everyone knows, the right-triangle with the side opposite the trailing angle parallel to the mast, which to this day I still think was taller than the boat long.

My mother taught me how to sail, or rather, how to be prepared to sail while floating aimlessly in a perfectly still lake. I was about twelve, then. There are many collective hours we spent in so-called "limbo-land", the place where penitent sailors are sent to atone for their sins committed upon land. The overly hot and windless place on any body of water where you're sure to find a new sort of vocabulary to express just how frustrated you are.

The trick to sailing is to sense the wind and to arrange the boat using the sail and the tiller in such a way to take advantage of that wind for propulsion. Now, that might seem obvious, but there are plenty of details that complicate this.

For example: imagine you're trying to get yourself from Point A to Point B on the lake. You manage to catch a good gust of wind and are successfully skating across the water towards... Point K.

The solution to this is called "tacking", which is boating terminology for zig-zagging in the general direction you want to go.

Now, say you're heading toward's Point K, but you want to go to Point B, well, you tack to Point C because if you average the angles AK and AC you're going in the general direction of Point B.

But, be careful! Because when you turn the boat to go to Point C you're going to cross the wind and that bar that holds the sail down (the boom) is gonna swing over to the other side of the boat. So, when you tack to Point C and the boom comes swinging at your head, you've got to quickly duck underneath it and arrange yourself on the other side of the boat.

On larger sailing boats this is not so much of a problem because the boom is well above your head, but in the little ol' Sunfish, when you're sitting on the edge of the boat, the boom is right at cheek level and if you aren't quick about it, that metal pole will hit you right in the face with the natural force of the wind behind it and knock your ass right out of the boat.

And here's another complication! When the wind blows on the sail it is exerting quite a lot of pressure on the mast and trying to push the whole arrangement over. This is why you must "hike." The wind pushes the mast over towards the water and the windward side of the boat up into the air. If you are sitting on the other side of the boat you're going to be in the water, you have to sit on the side of the boat that is being thrust into the air and fight against the wind pushing the mast towards the water.

Frankly, this is the best part of sailing. It's incredibly exciting to stand up on the opposite end of the boat, leaning way out over the other edge, holding on to the sail sheet (rope) for dear life and trying to milk all the speed you can out of the wind.

The problem is that you're riding a thin line here. Loosen up too much on the sheet and you loose the wind and go nowhere. Ride it too hard and you might capsize, which is when the mast falls into the water.

A capsized boat is what sailors call "A goddamn pain in the ass", which is a highly technical term. You might have noticed all of the technical terms used so far in this recollection. Now, there's supposedly a way that a sailor can right a capsized sunfish from the cockpit, but every time I've dumped my Sunfish I ended up in the water. Often very dramatically and with much cursing.

To right the Sunfish, you've got to push down on the centerboard (the removable plank of wood that goes down the center of the boat and acts as a keel) until the mast comes up out of the water. You've got to do this without a) filling the sail with too much water and ripping it b) righting the boat in such a way that it immediately catches a breeze and sails off without you c) catches a breeze the other way, rights itself and then capsizes on top of you d) turtles.

Turtling is the pleasant event when the boat turns all the way upside down so that the mast is sticking straight down in the water and the bottom of the hull is exposed to God's good sunshine. Many an amateur sailor has found himself sitting on the hull of his Sunfish contemplating why, exactly, he decided to go out on the lake that day. Why, exactly, did he even need a boat? How far would it be to swim back to the launch? What would be the best method for ditching the trailer? Would the authorities ever find him to fine him for abandoning the goddamn Sunfish in the middle of the fucking lake? Would the authorities blame him?

Let's say that you've done everything right and you've zig-zagged across the lake successfully all day. You've ridden the wakes of thoughtless motor-boaters, you've gained zen-like clarity in limbo-land, you've been mildly harassed by a lazy, underachieving pigeon who thinks he's got some kind of claim on your hard-earned tuna fish sandwich. Let's say that you raced some kids in a paddle boat and lost, let's just assume that your hands aren't bleeding from pulling on the sail sheet all day, let's just say you haven't run aground on any jagged fucking rocks. Now you've got one last thing to do. Get the boat back on land.

I've had this operation described to me before by a stander-by. Likened to an old black and white comedy. I've never been a particularly graceful person, nor strong, nor tolerant of bullshit and so I'm sure I look very funny when I'm getting the sunfish back on the trailer.

Here's how it goes:

I uncleat the sail and let it down as I glide in towards the small beach that I'm using as a launch. I run the boat aground very gently and jump out to pull it out of the water, but I immediately slip on a submerged rock and faceplant into the gentle lakeshore surf.

Sopping wet I pull myself onto the beach and yank the Sunfish out of the water and onto the beach using the bow-handle. Satisfied that the boat is secure, I go and retrieve my trailer from under a tree. I stashed it there so that it wouldn't be very hot when I went to retrieve it later. It is nevertheless red-hot.

I quickly wheel it through the grass and onto the beach, executing a neat little K-turn to get it aligned with the Sunfish... which is now drifting out into the lake.

I run down the narrow fishing dock to about where the boat has floated off to and leap into the water swimming hard to retrieve it. I almost capsize it getting in.

The sail being down, I decide to paddle in, which is a tricky proposition. I've got to keep the boat as straight as I can and going as fast as I can so that it will slide up the trailer planks enough so that it'll get stuck and I can get out and secure it with the winch and belt attached to the trailer.

I'm moving pretty fast when the bow hits the planks and starts sliding up, but I lose all momentum with the oar, which I toss to the side and leap across the bow to grab the winch-clip and secure it to the boat, but in order to avoid slamming my shoulder into the mast, I kind of slide off sideways off the flat bow, making that horrible painful screeching sound as I rip the skin of my elbows off on the fiberglass hull, but I land in the water with the winch clip in my right hand and the bow-handle in my left.

I yank them together and the boat is secure. I spend five more minutes securing the straps of the boat, stowing the oar, centerboard, tiller, sail, mast... Now, here's my little boat, neatly packed up and secured on the beach ready to be driven home and dried out in my backyard.

An unpleasant feeling, like a midge trying to burrow itself in my ear, comes into my mind. I try to swat it away, keep smiling at how neatly bundled my sail is, but the thought keeps nagging until it is fully voiced, "You've still got to pull it to the parking lot."

So, cursing and sweating, I dragged the heavily laden trailer across that small beach launch, over a short patch of grass, through some rather rough gravel and into a parking spot.

Some terrible bastard, driving an SUV and hauling a pontoon boat stopped and rolled down his window and asked, "Are you going to be using this spot for long?"

I don't remember saying anything, or even trying to communicate anything at all, I was too exhausted. I can imagine what I looked like, soaked from head to toe, my black Led Zeppelin shirt pulled and yanked nearly off my body, my once-white Chuck Taylor sneakers caked with mud and sand and whatever algae stains things permanently green. My straw-colored hair shooting this way and that over my eyes that through exhaustion had been drained of all intelligence, leaving only the cro-magnon hate-stare that had defended many a cave and cave-wife. My jaw was probably set in an unpleasant fashion to accomodate the fact that I was huffing oxygen like the goddamn Santa Fe Express. Bleeding from scrapes on my knees and elbows, blood seeping from the rope-burns on my palms like I'd just garroted half the Army of Tennessee.

Anyway, the guy in the SUV got the hint and drove off and left me to my fate as the undead protector of that Sunfish' parking spot.

I called my mom from the payphone next to the public bathrooms, leaning out of the booth to keep an eye on my boat. But who was going to bother to steal that hunk of crap? Hell! Take it off of my hands, I should have shouted to the parking lot! I've got another... thirty-five cents to anybody willing to take it!

But twenty minutes later, my mother shows up and I hitch the trailer to her Mazda. I've managed to clean myself up somewhat by this point, but my mother still manages to comment, "Looks like you got some sun today!"

Oh lordy. You don't know the half of it.

It wasn't always this taxing to sail the Sunfish. In fact, it was often just boring. I wasn't kidding about sitting out in the middle of the lake for hours waiting for a breeze. So one day when I was preparing the boat for a spin out on the lake, I was surprised when my sister and her friend came up and asked if they could come along.

"I dunno, Rory," I said to my sister, approximately 18 months my junior. "You and Kristy will probably get tired of swimming off the side of the docks long before I'm ready to come in."

"No, I meant that we want to come out on the boat with you," she said.

I cocked my head to the side. Now what kind of batshit crazy person would want to get on the boat with me? But Rory had been on the boat with me before and we'd had a half decent time. Docking the boat is certainly a lot easier with another set of hands. Now I had two sets? Holy shit, this might be luxurious!

"Okay, Kristy," I address my sister's friend, who was ninety pounds if you counted the column of air pressing down on her, pigtailed and almost a complete stranger to me. "Your parents know where you're going?"

She nodded her blonde head wordlessly.

"You know how to swim?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Will you follow my instructions? It's important. Everybody works on the boat."

"Okay," she said.

"Kristy's been on boats plenty before, Evan," my sister complained to me.

"Okay, whatever," I said.

On the sandy beach launch, preparing the boat, Kristy suddenly found her voice. As Rory and I unfurled the sail and fixed it to the mast and boom Kristy described to us in detail her spring at her uncle's horse ranch down in Arkansas.

"Sugar's the name of the one they gave me, he's sixteen-hand and as sweet as sugar, reckon that's why the named him that," Kristy said as Rory and I started to slide the Sunfish into the lake.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"We gone on a ride all the way to Kentucky for the weekend," Kristy said.

"That's too far!" Rory said, "Quit lyin'!"

Huffing and puffing, holding the bow handle and up to my waist in lake water, the boat was in the water and ready to go. "Y'know, Kristy, I don't think you can get to Kentucky from Arkansas."

"Sure you can!" Kristy defended.

"I mean," I gestured trying to get her to understand what I meant, "Not continuously, like you gotta go through another state first, like Missouri."

"I ain't ever been to Mizzoo," Kristy said.

"Or, like, Tennessee or something," I tried.

I was too focused on the boat to really care about what Kristy was going on about. It even seemed that Rory was a little fed up with her friend's constant boasting.

"Okay, everyone grab a life jacket," I said.

"Do I haf'ta?" Kristy said.

Before I could even respond, Rory snapped, "Yeah, everybody's gotta. Just put on the life preserver." And Kristy dutifully put the life jacket.

“I don’t like wearing life jackets. My uncle Roy don’t make me wear no life jacket when we’re on his boat in Arkansas,” Kristy complained as I paddled us away from the shore.

“Well, this isn’t your Uncle’s boat, Kristy,” I said.

The wind began to pick up the sail and I gently let the sheet out, “Okay, Rory, Kristy, come over to this side of the boat. Lean against it like this and hold on. You won’t fall out if you’re leaning.”

We started getting some good speed and Rory instructed Kristy in the proper posture for heeling on the Sunfish when she stopped screaming like I was beating her to death with a rock.

“Okay, so here’s an important part, Kristy,” I said. “When I say ‘Coming about’ it means I want you to duck under this bar here and sit on the other side of the boat like we’re doing here. You get it?”

“Yeah,” Kristy said.

“Okay, repeat it for me,” I said.

“When you say, go sit over there,” Kristy said.

“Right, okay,” I said and started doing all of the little calculations you had to do in your head for coming about in a dinghy.

“Do you got any drinks in here? My uncle Roy’s boat has two fridges and a freezer! We fried catfish on his boat one day. Best catfish you’ve ever had,” Kristy said.

“Coming about!” I said. I dodged under the boom and resumed hiking on the other side of the tack, but something felt different. Also, there was a strange moment of slack in the boom when I was passing under it. I looked over to check on my passengers, and found just my sister looking up at me with startled eyes.

A moment of panicked understanding passed between us and we nearly snapped our necks turning around to see Kristy from Arkansas flailing about in our wake. “Oh Jesus,” I blurted.

“What are we going to do?” Rory asked, panicked.

“We’re going to go get her!” I responded.

“Duh!” Rory smacked my shoulder, “How are we going to do that?”

“We’re going to come about again and we’re going to pull her out.”

Now we developed a plan, since I knew how to navigate the boat, I couldn’t pull Kristy out, but Rory might be too small to pull her friend out. So, I would grab hold of Rory, and as we passed Kristy Rory would grab her and pull her into the boat.

I cut it close, as close as I could without potentially hitting Kristy with the fiberglass hull, and Rory tried as hard as she could to pull Kristy from the water, but she slipped out like a fish.

“She’s too slippy from sunscreen!” Rory shouted.

“We’ll do it again,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’re coming for you, Kristy!”

Coming around and then shooting towards Kristy again I scrambled for a solution to the problem. “Okay, grab hold of the tiller and hold this rope like this,” I shouted at Rory, but she was rummaging in the hold.

She pulled out the oar, which had a gaff (or hook) on the end. “I’ve got her!” Rory shouted and as we slid past Kristy, Rory stood in the cockpit and plunged the oar at Kristy like Ahab spearing the whale. “From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!”

And with a great yank, Kristy splashed back into the cockpit sputtering and moaning about her head like some deep sea fish Rory had just clubbed into submission. What Rory had managed to do was hook the big loop on the back of Kristy’s life jacket and then leverage the oar on the side of the boat to help her fling Kristy back in.

We returned to shore and Kristy cried about the black eye she was developing from the boom as Rory and I packed up the Sunfish. After calling my mother to pick us up, we leaned on the bow of the boat and watched Kristy cry into her beach towel.

“Well,” I said, “I guess that’s it. Last time we’re allowed to do fuckin’ anything without supervision.”

“You know what part sucks the most?” my sister asked me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We saved her life today,” she said. “We could’a left her out there.”

“I don’t know if anyone would have blamed us,” I said.

“Nope,” Rory said. “Nobody.”