Capsizing (or wet, wet, wet ...)

Today we practised capsizing our boat. I can't say I was looking forward to it. We were to intentionally capsize the boat on the water while sailing, to then learn how to right it again.

My crew mate, Erica, was dreading going in the water even more than I was, which strangely calmed me more than a bit. We sailed out of the cove and raced into the next cove where the yacht club is. First boat in would be the first to perform the capsizin exercise, and we got that role. To capsize, we sailed on a beam reach, then all three of us in the boat gathered on the leeward size and leaned overboard. The boat gradually laid down on the water. I was surprised how slowly it happened, but it happened finally and we were in the water. The water wasn't all that cold but rather refreshing. We split tasks, Oscar held the mast up, I uncleeted the jib and the main sheet and threw them over the boat, Erica climbed onto the centerboard and as she hissed the boat up with her weight I got scooped into it by hanging onto the hiking straps. After that I could easily help them on board.

All this didn't take long, probably two, three minutes, and once we were righted we just sheeted in the sails and continued our course. We also practiced "man overboard" protocol, with a pad we threw out of the boat, then picked up. Once all the boats had capsized, we got to go again and this time I righted the boat by climbing over it, then standing on the centerboard. And it was actually fun.

A couple of our class mates broke the boom of their boat during the manoeuvering. They had to beach the boat and be towed to dock once the class was over. We were lucky that didn't happen to us and we could sail the shit out of our boat ...