Summer activities

As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I do some activities during summer time. One of them is sailing.

I started sailing three years ago and my overall aim is to get a skipper's certificate.
This is a pre-planned little CAS project for me because it involves learning new skills, undertaking new challenges (getting official certificates) and increasing awareness of areas for growth as I am constantly improving my skills. This also contributed to my ship building project as I learned how basic rigging works.

This summer I did to two more courses. After them I hired the boat alone with my dad and sailed along the coast. That was very different from sailing with an instructor. Although I knew the technique it was a challenge to me. I had to make all decisions on my own knowing that there won’t be anyone to correct me. If all the actions are quite easy if you do them one by one, when you need to everything at ones it becomes difficult. You not only need to keep the boat on course and adjust the sails but also think in advance about the shortest course and anticipate sudden wind changes. You need to decide on your strategy, for example: stay closer to shore and do more tacks and be ready for wind changes caused by the land or stay out. At the same time you must be ready to change plan fast if the wind shifts or increases/decreases. At first I was very nervous especially when the sail got stuck when we were putting it up. However I managed to solve the problem and the rest went ok.