Skysail Training
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SAILING HUMOUR

Refresher Training

Being a very occasional sailor (two weeks of fair-ish weather a year) it normally takes me several days to readjust to the physical constraints of a narrow, 30 foot home with no standing room. So, this year I thought I should get into training and I developed a regime which I now offer to like-minded water caravanners:

Sleep on a shelf in a broom cupboard. Replace the cupboard door with a curtain. Then:

1. Two hours after you go to sleep, have your better half whip open the curtain and shine a torch in your eyes and shout , " You’re on",  OR

2. set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night: when it does, jump off the shelf and get dressed as fast as you can, run into the garden and shower under the garden hose,  OR

3. wake up at 2 am and have a peanut butter sandwich on stale bread.

• Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bath and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take a shower, shut off the water when you've got the shower gel into a good lather.

• Dispense with your dustbin. Place all non edible household waste in small plastic bags, and store them in the other half of the bath.

• Throw any edible waste out of the window.

• Bring indoors some form of petrol engine (a lawn mower will be fine), start it and leave it running while trying to hold a conversation.

• Once a week, select a major household appliance, take it apart and put it back together. Count the parts left over.

• Have a fluorescent lamp installed under your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

• Raise the doorsteps and lower the top sills on your front and back doors so that you trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through.

And the other thing you have to do once a year is to reacquaint yourself with the technical jargon. So while it is helpful to know how to say "please" and "thank you" in Turkish or Greek, it's much more important to understand the following:

There are only four directions from which wave action tends to produce extreme physical discomfort in a boat

1. Beam Sea - A situation in which waves strike the hull from the side
2. Bow Sea - waves striking from the front
3. Following Sea - waves striking from the rear
4. Quarter Sea - waves striking from any other direction

Definitions:

• Boom - So-called because of the sound made when it hits the crew on the head on its way across the boat. For a slow crew, it's called 'boom, boom'.
• Bulkhead - Discomfort suffered by sailors who drink too much.
• Calm - Sea condition characterized by the simultaneous disappearance of the wind and the last cold drink.
• Companionway - A hole to fall into.
• Course - The direction in which a skipper wishes to steer his boat and from which the wind is blowing and the tide flows. Also, the language that results from not being able to.
• Crew - Heavy, stationary objects used on board ship to hold down charts and deck cushions, and to dampen sudden movements of the boom (qv).
• Current - Tidal flow that carries a boat away from its desired destination, or towards a hazard.
• Fluke - The sharp portion of an anchor that digs securely into the bottom, holding the boat in place; any occasion when this actually happens.
• Gybe - A reliable way to get unwelcome guests off your boat.
• Halyard - A special rope that breaks or jams when you are winning.
• Hatch - Another hole to fall into.
• Helm - The nut attached to the rudder through a steering mechanism.
• Keel - A very heavy depth sounder.
• Leech - A crew member who never has any money when its time to pay for drinks or meals.
• Luff - The front part of a sail that everyone concentrates on, except the helm.
• Sheet - A line made to rip gloves or hands apart; it also has the ability to tangle or snag on just about anything. Also an expletive made when this happens.
• Zephyr - Warm, pleasant breeze, named after the mythical Greek god of wishful thinking, false hopes, and unreliable forecasts.

updated 13th May 2011