Playing With My Dinghy
Sailing on Lake Waukomis in my 12′ Hobie Holder on New Year’s Day
I have played around with my dinghy a lot over the last year, and I have learned a lot.
First off, it’s really easy and fun to make jokes about my neighbors watching me play with my dinghy, or the fact that my neighbor gave me his dinghy for free, etc.
More important though, I have learned how different dinghy sailing is to “real” sailing. My boat is a 12 foot Hobie Holder. It was given to me by a neighbor who has not sailed it much for several years and just wanted it off his dock. So, for $0 I had an opportunity to get out on the water alone under sail for the first time in over a decade.
One thing dinghy sailing has in common with sailing larger boats is that land is by far the most dangerous thing. Boats are not made for land, so it’s wise to get away and stay away. The trouble is, having only sailed larger vessels, in crowded marinas, I have always depended upon the engine to leave and return to the slip. You just drive out to where you have good leeway and then face the wind, and finally hoist the sails. In my new dinghy, the sail is a sleeve that fits over the mast, always hoisted and un-reefed. Also, no motor. In hindsight, I should have thought through the general process, i.e. face the wind, but I TOTALLY did not. I just put the sail on and thought I’d sail right off into the lake. NOPE.
After about 10 minutes of the sail and boom shoving me onto the dock and boat heeling over hard until the mast hit the dock, I was finally able to muscle the boat away from the dock.
The rudder on my boat is made for driving the boat up onto a sandy shore at the end of your sail. It’s called a kick-up rudder and is a pretty neat concept. The trouble is, if the rudder is kicked-up, it does not give you much control over direction. So after my painful and embarrassing departure from my dock, I was basically adrift at the whim of the wind. I figured it out after a few minutes and finally had control of my direction.
Rudder in standard and kicked-up position
Now I was sailing. I quickly traversed the broad water in the main part of Lake Waukomis. I came about to head back toward my home dock and a nice gust of wind came. I was for the first time experiencing the thrill of a hard-heeling dinghy, and I was in love.
Lesson number 324 of the day though, do not use really old line in your rigging. My main sheet (the only sheet on this tiny vessel) snapped in twain and I immediately had no propulsion.
Luckily, the boat is small enough that I was able to grab the clew of the sail and regain some speed.
At this point, obviously I had made the call to sail home as directly as possible.
After about 50 meters, another gust of wind came and I was capsized. Luckily, my boat is small and light and righting her was very easy. After another several minutes of struggling, with several neighbors out watching (and snickering), I finally made it back to my dock beaten but not defeated.
An approximation of my route that painful “learning” day
The biggest lesson I learned that day is if you plan to take your spouse sailing for several years with your children aboard and she’s never seen you sail before, do not let her watch that first time. Grete completely lost faith in me that day and was a bit uneasy until the next time I went out on the water and used my head a bit more.
Over the course of the summer, I sailed all over the lake many times and it has all been smooth sailing. I sailed well into the fall, and when the lake thawed on December 31st I decided to take the old girl out to start the new year.
Sailing our dinghy has been a lot of fun and I look forward to introducing the concepts of sailing to Grete and the kids over the coming summers on this stout little yellow lady.