Chinese Version
09-11－2021，Saturday，very nice，24°C

On Saturday morning, my left arm, where I got the first shot of the shingle vaccine during my annual physical checkup, still hurts. It was a very special kind of stiff pain on a big chunk of my left arm. So I said to my daughter, “My left arm still hurts. I won’t go sailing with you in the afternoon.” My daughter replied, “Oh, sorry to hear this!” Alex added onto my daughter’s statement: “She (my daughter) is not as passionate about sailing as you. If you don’t want to go, we won’t go either.”

In the afternoon after taking a nice nap, I stood in front of the kitchen window and enjoyed the oncoming Autumn breeze. I couldn’t help but sigh, “The wind is so nice! It would be nicer to enjoy such wind on a boat.”

My daughter and Alex were sitting in the living room, preoccupied with cutting magazines and collecting papers to cover the dirt for the winter. After hearing what I said, my daughter said, “If you can’t sail, you can sit in the sailboat to enjoy the wind.” Alex added, “The wind is very good this afternoon. If we go now, we can see the sunset on the boat.” It was enticing to imaging sitting on the boat and watching the sunset in the autumn wind, so we hurried from Waltham to sail on the Charles River in Cambridge at 5:30PM.

We arrived at the MIT Sailing Pavilion at 6:00PM and saw many boats on the Charles River. Alex got the last catboat that had just docked on the shore, so there was no need to rig the sail; we put on our life jackets and got on the boat. When the catboat sailed off the shore to the middle of the river, the two youngsters encouraged me to sail the boat. Under the guidance of the coach, I performed the basic maneuvers of catboat steering: I, the skipper, sat on the opposite side of the sail. When tacking, I pushed the rudder away from me; while moving to the other side of the boat, I switched the hands of rudder and rope. After that, while holding the rudder with one hand and the rope of the sail with another hand, I was fully in charge of the catboat.

I hadn’t learnt how to adjust the tension of the sail through the rope yet. Sometimes my hands pulling the sail rope felt strained, I thought the sail was already tight, but the coach said: “The sail is a little loose, pull a little more.” When pulling the rope to adjust the sail, I felt like I was missing a hand. After pulling the sail rope in confusion for a while, the coach asked me to look up at the sail and explained: “The edge of the sail close to the head of the boat is luffing, which indicates that the sail is loose and needs to be tightened. When you use your hand to pull the rope to tighten the sail, pull back the rope in arm length, and transfer the position where the hand holds the rope to another hand holding the rudder to hold it; then free the hand to pull the rope back in another arm length, and then pass it to another hand to hold it…” After learning the relaying technique between two hands while pulling the sail rope, my feeling of missing a hand while pulling the rope disappeared, “Knowledge is powerful!“

While one hand held the rudder and another hand held the sail rope, I looked to the head of the moving boat for the direction, and I also looked up at the swaying sail to feel the wind. My retired brain immediately became highly engaged and concentrated at once, resulting in a good feeling of being young and sharp again. The coach further elaborated: “When the rudder and sail are in harmony, if you don’t want the boat to go too fast, your hand can let go of the rope and let the sail loose.”

Finally, I followed the instructions of the coach to steer the catboat to the waterside wooden dock of Charles River Esplanade and waved hello to the people sitting there watching the sunset. It was so cool! This year there are more people on the waterside dock than last year. I felt that COVID-19 which has troubled the public for more than a year was really getting better.

At sunset, the coach regained control of steering and sailing and quickly turned the catboat from facing towards the Esplanade to toward the MIT Sailing Pavilion. I became a passenger again, enjoying the soft Autumn breeze. I was sitting on a catboat slightly swaying to the west, a very unique place; I leisurely watched the gorgeous sky dyed by the sunset and the golden river reflected by the sunset, a very beautiful sunset landscape. The interesting thing is that after sailing, I found that the pain in my left arm also disappeared.

Little Episodes

1. 09-11-2021
Sitting on the boat and watching the beautiful sunset landscape:

Under the guidance of coach Alex, I used both hands, one to hold the rudder and another to pull the sail rope, to sail the boat towards the waterside dock of Charles River Esplanade:

2. 07-20-2020
Charles River Esplanade in July , very few people sitting on the waterside dock：

3. Stories about Sailing
The first time watching Skipper Alex sailing
My first time sailing