Category: Free Inquiry (Page 1 of 2)

As the weather has officially turned cold, the sailing season has also officially ended. Our team is closing up the compound gates until after the Christmas break! This also coincidently coincided with the ending of these blogs. For my final blog, I wanted to write about everything I feel I’ve learned over the last three months about sailing and journaling. So, here it goes.

Sailing

I started this sailing season with knowing absolutely zero about sailing or sailboats. However, overtime I got the opportunity to learn about how a sailboat works, and how sailing works. The sailboat glides through the water using two types of sails, which are called a main sail and a jib sail. The main sail controls the stern of the ship, whereas the jib controls the bow which maneuvers the ship. There is a tiller and rudder board, which are used for navigation. The tiller is control by a person called the skipper. The skipper not only controls the tiller and steering, but also the main sail. Other than the skipper, there is a person who controls the jib sail. This person is called a crew (my job!). A crew is also in charge of watching the water and any object or other boat in the way, as well as balance of the boat through body weight. The boat itself that our team used was called a 420 dinghy, a simple two-person boat that is excellent for learning on.

Other than the boat itself, I also learned about wind direction and the difference of sailing wind creates. There are different ways your boat could be hitting the wind, and each way differs how your sail are. If your boat is heading downwind, your sails need to be as far out as possible, in order to catch as much wind as needed. However, if you are heading upwind you want your sails to be as far in as possible, to cut through the wind and gain immense speed. Then, when a boat is in irons it means it is directly towards the wind and, usually, gaining almost no speed.

Other than wind direction, my team went over so many different drills and maneuvers. Here are a couple drills I had the opportunity of learning with my team. First off, tacking. One of the most basic maneuvers within sailing. It simply is switching directions. To do this, the skipper must switch the main sail while the crew switches the jib. While this happens, both must move to the other side of the boat in order to keep it upright on the water. This skill then progressed to a rolling tack, which involves tipping the boat as far as possible, tacking, and moving to the opposite side of the boat. This causes more speed to be gained, similar to an acceleration drill. An acceleration drill is a rolling tack without tacking. It gains speed while going the same direction you were going in before. Not a single one of these things did I know about before stepping foot into these sail boats, but I think they are all so fun to learn!

Journaling

I thought I would reflect on my journey of blogging so far, and how it affected my learning process. Honestly, I think being able to blog about my learning allowed me to process, understand, and grasp my learning so much better. Every week, I took time to sit down and write about my learning. This gave me a chance to reflect and put into words how I felt while learning, and what it meant to me, instead of brushing it off and moving on. Not only did it help me process after the learning took place, but I also noticed myself thinking about what I was learning as I was in sailing practice. I constantly found myself think “I have to add this into my blog!’. Overall, it was such a nice change of pace in learning to be able to simply reflect on learning.

And with that I close off this blog for the time being! I hope it inspired you to get out and try new things, especially if that new thing involves the ocean!

Washington and California hosted two amazing regattas this past weekend, both with excellent wind and sun! My team was headed to Washington, and the race team to California. However, since it was reading break I was back visiting my family in my hometown, so I had to miss it. Luckily, I was able to see some pictures and it looked like it went great!

Instead of going to the practice of the week, since we didn’t have one, I decided to discuss in this blog my findings about how the boat maneuvers the water, as well as what I’ve learned so far about sailing and myself.

Parts of the Boat

I took this picture, which I’ve attached down below, and it showcases two major parts of our sailboats. The bottom one is a tiller, the one that has a slim stick component, and the top is the rudder board. In the image, the blue bag is a ‘sail bag’, which is pretty straight forward and it is the bag for our sails. These are called the rudder board and the tiller. In order for the boat to be steered, both of these get attached to the back of the 420. The tiller comes up to the boat, which acts as a sort of steering tool. The rudder board stays placed in the water, and is what moves to steer the boat. This board is always a flat smooth surface in order to glide the boat through the water. Without these two parts of the boat, it wouldn’t be possible to navigate the boat in any way while sailing. It is crucial that these are also set up in a correct manner, so guidance while doing it for your first time is necessary! Once on the water, the skipper can move the tiller to move the rudder board around. When the tiller moves left, the boat goes rights. When the tiller moves right, the boat goes left. This can be confusing at first, but it makes sense if you imagine water hitting the rudder board at certain angles.

What I’ve Learned So Far

If you asked me what I was learning while taking on the challenge of sailing, I would probably chatter on about some sailing terms and maneuvers I’ve learned over the last few months. Maybe I would talk about rolling tacks, or how to accelerate on a 420 sail boat, but I decided to challenge myself to think about what I’ve learned about myself.

I’ve learned how I handle certain types of stress, how my body recharges after being outside, and how important learning is to me. First off, sailing in certain weather conditions, or with intense drills can cause the risk of capsizing to increase. This in turn creates stress for both the skipper and crew, however, this stress is good stress. It pushes me to learn how to do certain maneuvers better, while managing the stressed feeling. Sailing also gave my body an outlet to get outside for a period of time, which has proven to be super important to my recharge. After sailing, I may feel exhausted, but it’s a good exhausted! Finally, sailing has made me realize how much I enjoy learning things I feel passionate about, and like doing. In the last little while, I’ve felt detached to a lot of my studies, and felt as if I don’t feel passionate or excited about materials I am learning. However, sailing reminded me how much I desire to learn, especially on the water!

Sailing may take time, patience, and a lot of courage, but it’s given me so many skills that can translate to my personal life.

Sunday morning I woke up and looked outside to the scattering of branches and leaves across the roads and our backyards, the wind of the night before had created so much chaos it seemed! Not only that, but it seemed to still be howling. I knew right away that sailing that day was probably not going to happen, which made me so upset! My coach texted us all and warned us of the wind, and the chance of sailing being impossible, or dangerous. The knots were looking as high as 25 and 30, which is insanely fast. Therefore, I didn’t know if I would be sailing that day until an hour before when all of a sudden the sky looked beautiful and the wind slowed down to barely 8 knots! We rushed down to the beach, where a few of our teammates gathered, and we started rigging the boats. At first, there were so few of us who made it to practice that I assumed we would just cancel, but our coach told us it was just a better learning opportunity for one on one help! She was totally right, and we headed out to the ocean.

The ocean was freezing. My feet felt like icicles as we tried to remove the dolly from underneath the boat and hop in. After we managed to get in, my feet never warmed up. I guess this is why proper sailing gear is so important! Besides this, we had so much fun out on the water! We focused on two new skills of the day, roll tacking and acceleration.

Roll Tacking

Roll tacking is basically a tack that involves more movement within the boat, which can cause more speed for the boat. It may be more tricky than a regular tack, but it has much better speed momentum. This can be super important within a race. Doing a rolling tack essentially allows for less use of the rudder, which can give a nice push to the boat. How you roll tack is all in the movement of body weight. It acts as a normal tack in regard to how you maneuver both the main sail and the jib, but in order to make it a rolling tack you need to have both the crew and skipper fully leaning towards one side before tipping the boat back flat. Here are some more detailed steps to roll tacking:

1. Sail close-hauled
2. Heel to leeward and start heading up
3. Sail should luff as you enter irons
4. Roll boat to windward
5. Boom will cross and sail should be on new tack
6. Cross the boat and hike it flat

These may not make sense, as it uses a lot of sailing lingo, however, it is essentially switching the sails to the other side of the boat by almost tipping the boat, and then tipping it abruptly back. At first, I was scared of starting rolling tacks, as they mean the boat must be tipped further into the water than I’ve ever been, but it was so fun once I got the hang of it! Our coach was able to give us guidance throughout learning it, which was super helpful.

Acceleration

The final thing we discussed and learned today was how to accelerate in the sail boat. This required similar movements to roll tacking, but didn’t mean flipping the sails. So, it essentially just involves as bearing off, and tilting the boat as far as possible, then flipping it up as fast as possible. This skill was easier after learning how to roll tack, and was also fun! To show us just how far we could tip our boat before it capsizes, our coach came into our boat and tipped it as close to the water as she could (I know scary right!), but she was correct in saying that the boat can be flipped so far before capsizing! As long as the rudder board doesn’t go parallel to the water, it’s all good! So, we kept trying to see how far we could tip our boat, and how fast we could accelerate it. Key skills like this are exactly what I love learning, so it was so nice to be able to get out on the water and learn them.

Overall, the day was filled with being able to learn new skills, even though they may have scared me at first!

Here’s a photo of the boat I got to sail this weekend (not rigged yet, don’t worry we put sails on it!), and the gorgeous sun that came out right as we were able to leave!

Slowly as the days go on, it is harder to get myself out of the house and to sailing practice. It’s not that I don’t want to go, but it is the weather. When we first started sailing as a team, it was always sunny skies and t-shirts and shorts weather. Being on the water then was fun, and exciting. Now, it is rainy, cold, and cloudy. The rain makes me want to stay inside where it’s warm and dry, with a movie and a hot chocolate. However, weather will always be unpredictable and it can’t be the determining factor of whether I sail or not.

Our coach messaged us and let us know that if it was down-pouring, there would be no way we could sail. However, right as sailing was about to start, the skies slightly cleared and the rain slowed to just a sputter. So, we bundled up in warm clothes and headed to Cadboro Bay for another couple hours on the water.

Right when we got there, we discussed as a team the possibility of capsizing. If you’ve read my last posts, you might remember how capsizing is one of my biggest fears when it comes to sailing. I don’t ever want to be in the moment where I have to swim in the freezing ocean and attempt to flip my sailboat back right side up. We discussed what to do if we flip over, and then rigged up our boats in the rain.

The biggest thing I had to focus on this week to make tight tacks and be able to keep the boat on top of the water was my body positioning. Even though my skipper is the main balance of the boat when he shifts his body positioning, in weather like this I have to be super careful as well. If I shift to the wrong side, the wind will grab my sails and flip us over. So, I kept telling myself to focus on which side my sails were flipping to, either starboard or port, and to follow them. Luckily, this worked and my skipper and I never capsized our boat!

Looking back on this practice, I realized how important teamwork is within the boat. There was one moment about half way through practice that my skipper and I didn’t use proper communication to understand when we were tacking, so my skipper moved the main sail before I could rotate the jib in time. This caused not only an extremely slow tack, but also a capsizing scare. My heart was beating so fast, but after this we talked about how insanely important that teamwork and communication was. Then, we were able to focus on teamwork for the following tacks. This was extremely important to be reminded of, so I’m glad we as a team had this learning experience.

We may have gotten soaking wet and so cold, but overall we were able to learn how to navigate lousy weather as a team, and it was for sure a good practice!

To be honest, I was really struggling with writing this blog this week. I’m usually very good with gathering my thoughts and ideas about my time and putting them onto a page. However, this week I didn’t end up making it to sailing practice. Then, I had the biggest writer’s block about what to write in my sailing blog when I didn’t even sail.

At first, I wanted to justify why I didn’t go sailing in a way that sounded genuine and, honestly, not lazy. Then, I thought about how I should be authentic in this blog and real. I was feeling pretty burnt out last Sunday, and the weather was cold and wet, and my skipper wasn’t attending, and I overall wasn’t feeling like sailing. I wanted to tell myself to suck it up and go, but then I thought about how important my feelings were. I needed to read my body and take a day off, which I did.

However, during this day off I realized even though most of those excuses were true, it wasn’t the real main reason I didn’t go. The main reason was my roommates. They were all going to watch a movie and be together before starting off our busy week again, and I needed that. I needed them. I then and there realized how important taking time for my community is. Whether this means pushing some other priorities away, then be it. My roommates, friends, and family are my recharge. They give me energy and life. Even as simple as a movie night is, it is what recharges my battery and allows me to continue on for the rest of the week.

So that’s what I did. I watched a stupid movie with them, and ate popcorn. We just sat, watched, and laughed together. Something so meaningless, yet the main thing keeping me going. The little moments I get to share with my community and those I love. I thought I would share a few pictures of my roommates and I, which brings me so much comfort! They are seriously the most caring people I’ve ever met in my life, I could go on and on. For example, as I was writing this, one of my roommates made me hot chocolate “just ’cause”.

This blog may not be normal, or have anything to do with sailing, but it’s what I wanted to write about and that’s what this blog is truly for. It’s for growth, and learning. I learned how important my community is to my growth and I. So, that’s my thoughts of this week, and I encourage everyone to take a moment and thank those around you who have helped you recharge.

I’m not going to lie, this week’s practice scared me a little bit. When we got there, the weather was looking not the best, but more importantly, the wind was northeast. This meant that in Cadboro Bay, the wind was coming from over the land. When wind comes from over the land, which I just learnt, meant that it is very unpredictable since it hits houses, structures, and more. So, in our briefing to start the day, we were told there was chances of random wind blows and wind loss. However, we rigged our boats anyways and headed to the water.

Right off the bat, the boat was hard to handle. My skipper and I struggled to figure out which way the wind was coming from, and how our sails were hitting it. After a bit, we were about to get out to the course and start practice. Although, every time we went windward (which means upwind), we would close haul our sails and be going faster than I’ve ever gone before, since the wind was very intense. With the unpredictable winds, our boat was super tippy. This meant we were essentially hanging out the side of the boat just to keep balanced and not capsized. I also realized during this practice that I am so scared of capsizing (tipping over the boat and falling into the water). One group actually did capsize due to the weird wind patterns and random blows, which did make me much more scared to be honest. It is something I need to learn to be less afraid of, for it happens in sailing and that’s okay! It would be a learning experience. Luckily, we never capsized during this practice, even though we had a couple scares.

Another new thing this week, besides learning how to sail in unpredictable winds and doing some drills with this, was learning how to race. I honestly had no idea what racing looked like in sailing, but it was so interesting to see. So here’s a run down of how racing in sailing works:

• Every boat does figure 8’s around the start line
• A count down occurs starting from 3 minutes from the committee boat
• No boat can cross the start line before the timer, if they do they have to turn around and go back

There is so much more, but there are some of the ground level rules! Our course was set up around one mark, which I have included a picture so you can see. Even with the super unpredictable wind, my skipper and I won the first race! It was neck in neck, but somehow we caught slightly more wind and won! Even though majority of this practice I was scared of capsizing, the race was very fun and made me remember that it’s really all for fun and games.

Overall, this practice was filled with a lot of learning and remembering to enjoy the sport rather than fear it! I allowed me to take time to feel the stress in my body, but also learn how to regulate it properly. Although I do hope the next couple practices don’t involve as much wind and scary moments, it was a good experience to learn more about sailing in certain weather types. Take a look at the course image I made down below for a better idea of what the course set up would be!

This past weekend, I was unable to go to sailing practice since I headed back to the mainland for Thanksgiving. However, I decided to still take some time to be out on the water, as well as take some time to do research about sailing instead.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sail this weekend, so instead I spent an evening paddle boarding with my friends. I wanted to still be able to get onto the water, as well as take some time outside. While doing this, I was reminded of two things. Firstly, I was reminded of how important getting outside is. I wasn’t able to go paddle boarding until Tuesday night (I usually sail on Sundays), and I could feel myself getting restless with a short attention span during the day Monday and Tuesday. I now understand how important outside time is for my brain. Secondly, I was reminded how flexibility is an important trait to have. I was a bit frustrated about not being able to sail and have something to write about on this blog, but I was able to be flexible and still learn lots.

I decided to also do some research in order to learn more about sail boats and the act of sailing. I did readings on the use of the specific sailboats my team uses, 420’s, but also on different aspects of sailing. Through my research I learned many things, but I’ve decided to go through only a few here. I learned that 420 boats, which are actually called International 420 Dinghy, are used worldwide at both club and international levels. The name comes from the size of the boat, which reaches the length of 420 centimeters. There are so many high standing competitions around the world for people to sail, race, and do so much more. Apparently, Poland is a top racing team in the Eastern Europe sailing regatta currently.

To conclude, having a break from sailing wasn’t at first my favourite, but I made the most of it and still learned so much through other ways. I also added a picture taken a week back from the UVic sailing club of a 420 boat which just got rigged.

This past Sunday was the second practice for our JV sailing team, and our first practice learning about working with wind directions. It was a super interesting practice because Cadboro Bay had very minimal wind.

Before we rigged our boats, we headed to the whiteboard to discuss the drills of the day. The drills included a figure 8 course, which I discussed in my last free inquiry post – titled ‘First Sailing Drills’. This course was slightly trickier at this practice, however, because our course was shortened. The shortened course was to force more boat to boat interactions, which it definitely did. After this course, we learned a new one called ‘windward leeward. Windward refers to the boat moving upwind, whereas leeward refers to it going downwind. This course pushes the idea of wind directions and the tautness of your sails in specific wind types. For example, letting out my sail during the leeward side of the course allowed for slightly more speed.

In my last post, I also mentioned watching people rig the boats and trying to learn this as well. This time, I assisted with rigging and did more hands on learning of the knots and ropes. One major knot is the figure 8 knot, which I have pictured below! It was exciting to be able to more fully understand how to rig a boat, and the steps to make sure the boat is rigged right.

The goal of our practice this week was two things: wind direction monitoring, and correcting our tacking (tacking is switching sails to the other side of the boat in order to change directions). I learned so much about both of these during the practice, especially about the implications of tacking too early. On the windward leeward course, tacks can significantly impact your speed maintenance. If I tack too soon, it means the wind in my sail slows, and the turn will be brutally slow. This went hand in hand with learning about wind direction. We learned that irons means when the boat is essentially stopped, close-hauled is when the wind is the boat’s side, and more.

Overall, this week focuses on phoning our skills in tacking, which is one of the simpler skills, but one of the most important in sailing! I also wanted to finish off this post by discussing my inquiry question I began with in the start of this blog. It questioned if putting myself in a position to learn something new would help me try to learn more new things. So far, I think it is evident that being able to learn how to sail (which I never thought I could do!) has for sure given me a boast in wanting to learn more things. If I can learn how to sail, what else can I learn to do?

This week was the first practice our sailing team had together, and it was full of new experiences and learning curves. I was able to watch those who have been doing this for a while, as well as learn with people who know about as much as I do.

The practice started with us being ask to rig our boats, which are 420 boats. 420 boats are used mostly for races, as well as for teaching sailing. They are one of the easier sailboats to sail, but this means they are better for teaching and training purposes. Rigging a boat was tricky at first, but after the first time it is simply mussel memory they said. You have to learn about 3 different knots and how the sails sit on the booms. I got to watch my skipper rig the boat, and then we rolled it out of the shipyard and onto the beach shore. Once we all were told which drills we would be doing, today’s were called sausage and infinity, we headed out.

My skipper and I started by getting used to the boat, and then started our first drill of sausage. This was one of the easiest drills, and it is simply moving in a round shape between two markers. At every marker, we tacked in order to effectively move around the course. During this time, my coach told me to try positioning myself backwards in the boat to see if I liked it more. I turned fully around and tried sailing backwards essentially. At first, it felt super uncomfortable to be unable to see the front of the boat, but it just enforced the trust I had to have for my skipper and their sailing skills. I liked to sit forward as it was more comfortable, however, it was definitely good to be able to try it out.

After this drill, we moved into the infinity drill which allows for more boat to boat interactions as you have to cross each other’s paths. This drill was definitely more difficult for the skippers. However, we all were able to do it. The wind on the shore wasn’t intense during practice, and this slowed us down quite a bit, but it also allowed us to work more on our skills without the idea of capsizing, which is a very real possibility.

After the drills were complete, we headed back in and discussed the practice. We talked about what went well, and things we want to improve on. Then we headed home! Overall, it was such a new experience and pushed me to learn so many new things. I felt exhausted when I came home, but it was a good exhausted!

For my free inquiry topic, I was fully ready to do graphic design. I’ve been doing graphic design for a couple of years now as a hobby I started during COVID, and I thought about improving on it. However, a couple of wrenches were thrown into this plan over the last two weeks. First off, the iPad in which I normally use to create my graphics is my parent’s, in which means it is stuck in my hometown and not accessible. Then, about two weeks ago I was with some friends on a Saturday morning having breakfast. As a joke, a friend brought up the fact they were heading to the sailing try outs later that day and I should go as well. A little bit of backstory to this: I had never sailed a sailboat in my entire life at that point. The joke continued, but slowly it turned into more than a joke. Next thing I know, I’m standing knee deep in freezing ocean water staring head on to a 420 sailboat.

If you would have asked me a few weeks ago if I was going to sail, I would have laughed in your face. However, there I was about to not only sail, but try out for the UVic sailing team. After try outs, I thought it would be interesting to discuss this on my free inquiry instead of something I already know how to do, like graphic design.

Sailing is something completely out of my comfort zone, and I can not tell you what was in my water that morning I tried out for the team, and here’s how it went:

I walked into the sailing club area and met a few people who were very passionate about this sport. Then, a coach got up and introduced himself before asking as to stand on the ‘crew’ or ‘skipper’ side. Not only do I not know how to sail, I also don’t know any sailing lingo. I quickly turned to my friends and asked what this meant. A skipper is the person in charge of steering the boat and handling the main sail. A crew is in charge of switching the jib sail, which is the smaller one at the front of the boat. I shuffled to the crew side and was randomly matched up with a skipper and a coach. The coach was to watch your sailing and determine your ability to be on the team. After watching a few rounds of people sailing, my turn came and I jumped into a 420 sailboat, which is commonly used as a two person boat in races. I have never been put in a situation like this before, but there I was holding two ropes and in charge of a whole sailboat with one other person. On top of this, I had a coach watching my every move. Getting into that boat was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done, but it was so worth it. I was sitting there and I looked up to see the beautiful calming ocean welcoming me. As we went, I learned the basic maneuvers, like tacking. Tacking is what occurs when switching directions in the boat, and when a crew has to change the jib to a different side of the boat. After what seemed like 2 minutes on the boat (which was about 30 minutes in reality), we came back to shore and I got to help derig the boat.

Overall, it was the most eye-opening experience and makes me want to try every new thing now. I was nervous, scared, and honestly unprepared, but it was so good for me to step outside my comfort zone. I was also blessed to have amazing mentors surrounding me, like my friends as well as other people on the team and coaches. I received an email later that week extending an invite to allow me to join the team! I can’t wait to pursue this learning and to more adventures out on the sea.

Through this learning journey I hope to be able to answer this question: Will learning how to sail help me feel more open-minded to learn other new things?