Conniption?

... for Knots in the String.

I think I might have had a bit of a conniption this week.

Others might say I was just barmy.

I would say I’m just spontaneous.

I had an idea I wanted to go back to sailing. Like I did when I was a child.

Sail, sheets, rudder and centreboard. The clickety clack jingle of shackles rolling, the flap of a sail as one runs it up the mast.

All very romantic – pushing the dinghy out into the cool seawater, jumping in, slipping the centreboard and rudder down, dragging in the mainsail sheet and watching the sail tighten, feeling the boat heel and slightly angle across the wind, gliding forward. All going well at the age of eleven and with a very adept brother as skipper, me as crew.

But now I’m almost 72, I have no rightside balance, a stiff neck, a bung lower back, and perennially tearing glutes. Can I leap into a boat, get the rudder and centreboard down and haul the sheets with arthritic hands, as the sail flaps and cracks as if I’m in a Force Ten gale?

‘’Course I can!’ I thought, lost in my salt-rimed memories, viewing it all through verdigris-tinted glasses and pretending I was something I probably am most definitely not.

I promptly began the search for a tiny bathtub of a Bermuda-rigged yacht called a sabot (so-called because it looks a like a Dutch clog!)

(Image from Wikipedia)

My theory is that it’s so tiny, I should be able to reach rudder and centreboard easily from my seat on the floor of the boat and when I go about, hopefully I will only have to duck my head and shift my weight slightly. And I’m only 5’3’’ anyway…

My Dad built a yacht once, for my brother and I.

It was a marine ply trailer sailor – Dad built in the garage, and it was glued together with stuff called Plastibond which lasted for the life of our time with the yacht. In fact, Plastibond became somewhat of a euphemism in the family for fixing anything broken – collarbones, headaches, hearts – you name it.

Dad’s language as he built the boat in the garage was fabulous! I learned more swearwords than was good for me because Dad seemed to forget the garage was beneath my bedroom! I’d sit on my bed reading or journaling, and up would pop any of the B, D and F words and my jaw would drop, breath would suck in, until it became so common my lips would just curl into a grin and my vocab would increase by the letter.

He painted the boat navy with white gunwhales and we had a white sail. Mum wanted us to call the boat Quiller as she was reading The Quiller Memorandum at the time and liked the name. Dad wanted Tiki because he was reading Thor Heyerdahl’s Kontiki Expedition and whilst the boat was no Kontiki, it was small enough for the name to be half that, and thus the sail was decorated with a tiki emblem which in Polynesian culture symbolises good fortune and Tiki was launched with a lot of gin, rum, lemonade and laughter.

My brother was an instinctive sailor – and just between you and me, as skipper he let me know. I think he loved every minute of the awesome power, because I was eleven… and he was only seven!

We entered our first race, the local Spring Bay Regatta – we’d only been sailing together for a couple of months. It was a pretty swish-bang regatta in those days. There was a big race for more graceful craft than ours which was called the Cock of the Bay and the prize was a crate of fresh caught Tasmanian crayfish. The racing yachts were generally the beautiful ocean racers returning to Sydney after the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and they were up for lighthearted fun.

Lots of laughs, lots of tanned faces, beautiful hangers-on and lots of grog.

Meanwhile, back on Tiki, in our first ever junior race and with the skipper yelling at me, we made our way to the start line. We sailed back and forth and I asked timidly,

‘When do we go?’

‘Soon!’ was the terse reply followed by a mighty BANG!

I nearly fell overboard. ‘What was that?’

‘The five minute gun and pull that bloody sheet in!’

‘The five minute gun?’ Nobody had told me they used guns! ‘And don’t swear! I’ll tell Mum!’

‘We start in five minutes so get bloody ready to go about!’ He must have been listening to Dad in the garage…

I held tight to the starboard sheet, held the port sheet loosely, wondering if I really did love my brother at all, waiting for more salty instructions as we skimmed along.

‘Ready About!’ he yelled.

I pulled the loose port sheet a little harder wondering why sailing involved so much yelling.

BANG!

‘Lee-O!’ yelled my brother.

Heart pounding, I released the starboard sheet, hauled on the port sheet, we flipped onto the other tack and crossed the start line.

It was a simple little course, filled with maybe other boats of varying sizes sailed by children. With even more shouting, and me managing not to lose one of the two ropes I was in charge of, we crossed the finish line with another BANG!

I was just thrilled to finish without bottling but my brother was desperate to see if we’d been placed and it turned out we had! On handicap, we’d been placed second. Hip hip and all that!

I sailed on a few boats in my life after that – mostly as inept crew or just grateful passenger, but I could do enough to make myself a little bit useful. I don’t know that my skills became any better, but I loved it all – the water swish-whispering along the hull, the wind crack-filling the sails and banshee-whining through the halyards, the clank of all the metal shackles and in bigger boats, the whirring of the grinders rolled by broad sunburned shoulders and pulling in great swathes of sail.

But back to my little sabot.

I found one – for $A200. Apparently seaworthy. And I’ve placed a call to the owner.

Am I mad?

Will this be a flash in a somewhat soggy pan?

Will I be able to add whiplash, garrotting and a broken rib to my current injuries? (I did get a fractured rib once from a catapaulting catamaran – bow over stern. I hit the stays as she flipped.)

Thus my family are looking at me strangely.

I can’t for the life of me imagine why…

My Time:

A too-busy week. You know the sort.

My latest injury awaits iontophoresis and I’ve bought shares in Voltaren gel.

I coddled our family…

I crawled home from ballet – not sure if the mental or physical exhaustion was worst.

I plotted new plantings in part of the little city garden which has had an edging of Corten steel inserted – I think white hydrangeas and white flowering ground covers.

I started daydreaming the next chapter of Peregrinus II. That’s always an affirming process for me as it means no roadblocks.

Reading:

Print:

STILL Gyles Brandreth’s bio on the late Queen, but I’ve ordered The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig which should be here imminently. How could I not be intrigued by these words: ‘Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story, each living a life as vivid and complex as your own?’. Because, yes! I often create backstories when I’m people-watching and I just know this book will contain words to create emotions of many kinds.

I also purchased Greenlights in print for my son, who will soak up the humorously yet affirming words of Matthew M. I also spotted two more Raynor Winn titles whilst in the bookshop and think I might have to add them to my collection of ‘Life’ books.

Kindle:

Rhys Bowen’s The Venice Sketchbook. Covering WWII in Venice, it is beautifully delivered from a woman who has such a grasp on the ethereal feel of Venice and is very subtle in her delivery of fact. There have been so many fictions delivered to the marketplace on WWII lately and the characters and narrative have become smothered in sky-high info dumps. It makes me cast them aside.

Listening:

Finished McConaughey’s Greenlights. Delighted with it and feel I must re-listen with pen and journal to make note of his prescriptions and bumper-sticker sayings. He is an earthy philosopher, a student of the elemental joy that can be life if we let it. As I said last week, I was charmed in the listening. This week, having finished it, I’m a touch more educated. ‘Alright, alright, alright!’

Now listening to The Dictionary Of Lost Words by Pip Williams and read by Imogen Sage. Normally I dislike female narrators, but Sage fits the bill, and this is an intriguing story. Perfect for audio.

And so I finally finish writing this epistle, wondering if I’ll get a call back on the sabot, and if I don’t, will I just leave it at that?

Will I just go out in the kayak and accept that my sailing days are all done and dusted? A part of family history?

Who knows? I guess it depends on the state of the wiring of my conniption, don’t you think?

In any case, looking for a song, and much against my better judgement, I couldn’t really go past this one, could I?

PS: Sorry this is so long and I really don’t blame you if you gave up halfway through.

Cheers.