The first ever time I sailed in my life was when I joined the University of Chicago sailing club. In the club, we sailed on 420s, as is illustrated in the first two pictures, taken during an inter-collegiate regatta in which I participated (even as a graduate student :-). When I was asked about my motivation for joining the University of Chicago sailing club, I said I wanted to begin learning how to sail in order to be able to one day sail on a historical tall ship. Of course, they looked at me like: "Yeah, dream on!" The rest is history...
To begin with, some 8 months later, I joined one of the finest racing yachts in Chicago. The a C&C 35-3 racing yacht Wings can be seen right below, and the story of how I got to join the stellar Wings crew suggests that I may not after all be such a lost case concerning acting like I know what I am doing. Wings was one of the finest racing boats perhaps on the whole Lake Michigan not only concerning its racing results but also the opportunities extended to, and the care taken of, the crew. (This care included the complimentary bottomless supply of Goose Island beer provided by the CEO of Goose Island, who was also the captain and owner of the boat, and who is featured in the second photo. And that is how I found out that American beer can in fact be good as well :-).
But I digress. So how did I get to join Wings? My first race with the Wings was in fact in the NOODs--a national level regatta. One of their crew members was unavailable, so they posted an opening for that weekend. I did not even know who they were, and I had no clue what NOODs was either, although had I known the details of the situation, I would have probably not dared to answer. I responded I would go, and I honestly listed with what kind of boats/jobs I had experience, although I did not emphasize I sailed on each of these boats only once or a couple of times. Neiter did I point out that I was writing only over a month after I had first set a foot in any boat larger than the two-person college 420s. The Wings guys decided to try me, so I showed up on Friday, and they gave me a job. When the three-day regatta was over, they invited me to come back and join the crew. Only much later I learned that they were not able to tell how entirely new I was because I not only performed my job very well (in this national regatta :-) but I also kept taking pictures at the same time. Thus, I looked like I needed to multitask in order to keep myself occupied at all :-). So the next time they gave me much more diverse/involved job. And since in my new role of the mastman, I got my hands on most of the lines on the boat, I loved it! Later I got to try other jobs as well.
Although it did not take the captain long to find out that I was barely figuring out what I was doing in the more difficult positions, he had no problem with letting me try various things. He thought the less official races, the weekday Beer Cans, were the perfect occasions for such endeavors (although he had to have some confidence in me to begin with, as things could go terribly wrong, and serious damage could occur, should I screw up for example in the position of a bowman). In the first photo below, I am not hanging out just to look cool :-). Instead, I am getting ready to handle the jib, and do other jobs on the bow of Wings. At the moment the picture was taken, we were heading to the area where a race would be started. The boat with the red flag is the race committee boat, and all the other boats out there are getting ready to compete for the best position on the starting "line." Thus, one of my first bowman jobs will be to yell at other boats so that they do not impinge on our right of way, etc. Being as assertive as I am, you can guess I "loved" this part! :-).
With Wings, we celebrated many impressive victories and placements (Wings also because "Boat of the Year" yet again during that era). Her " Chicago era" is unfortunately over now, however. She returned to her birthplace by Toronto, and is now now sailing on Lake Ontario. The last Picture directly below is from her very last trip before she got sold out of the Waukegan Yacht Yard.
Already while I was with Wings, I begun looking for a tall ship to sail on as well. In Chicago, I thus got a job on the schooner Red Witch. But my very first tall ship experience involved the full-rigged tall ship Bounty. This is another story, which is illustrated here. But to return to the claim I made to the University of Chicago sailing club officers--about wanting to learn how to sail so that I can do so on an historical ship. It was only some 15 months after my joining of the UOfC club, that I started on my first tall ship. And I am now a helmsman on Kalmar Nyckel whenever I only can make it (see this story here).
