My first sail

“Experience is a dear school,
But fools will learn at no other”
(Ben Franklin)

I come from a long line of catastrophe prone idiots. It’s most definitely in my genes.

My family, like myself, have a particular talent for screwing up first times in spectacular ways. Having come to expect it, and having grown up with it, I’m seldom side-swiped by it.

And so when my first ever sailing experience ended in disaster I was ready to greet the barracking of my friends and family with a smile on my face and the quiet resignation that at least it was out of the way.

Incompetent crew

Even by my standards my year hadn’t been going well. My father had recently died, I was in the middle of a protracted tax investigation and both my clients of the time were in financial trouble and unable to pay my invoices. I was therefore particularly looking forward to my first RYA Competent Crew course, a crisp early spring sailing week that would serve as the first step towards my dream of sailing off around the world.

There were four of us for the course, three total novices (one with a bad leg and a walking stick who we were quietly taking bets on not seeing the week out) and a Day Skipper candidate more used to motor boats. The tutor was a crusty old sea-dog; slightly deaf but entirely agreeable if you can get along with the “the only way is my way” type.

Sharing a couple of beers before bedding down for the night the skipper introduced us to some of the things we’d  be doing that week whether we agreed with them or not. One of his rules was that we all take seasickness medication before heading out. As a man with a pretty strong constitution I was pretty damn sure I didn’t need to, and in ten years since I’ve never been seasick. In fact the only time I’ve ever felt nauseas on a boat was that first day, and almost certainly a result of taking those same bloody pills.

A nice little boat trip down the coast

The following morning we got acquainted with the boat and headed out for a gentle day’s sail down to the next harbour. As someone who’d never sailed a small boat before, but who had dreamed of it for years, there are two things I’ll always remember about that day. That first moment we cast off and started moving under our own steam, and afterwards looking at a map and realising just how far we’d travelled in the course of a day that felt just like we were messing around in the bay.

A few sail changes, a few sessions on the helm, the odd cup of tea and sandwich. The weather was pleasant, the company cheering. This was how I’d always dreamed sailing would be.

As we approached our berth for the night the skipper decided some rigorous man overboard practice was in order. Now I entirely respect the need for sailors to innately acquire this skill, it’s a life-or-death one after all. It’s also easy to pick holes with the benefit of hindsight. But it did seem to me at the time that putting three sailing virgins into a full-on panic on a small boat was perhaps, er.., a little reckless?

For our first exercise I drew boat-hook duty and manoeuvred myself for a starboard side pick-up on a rucking foredeck while the skipper barked orders at the befuddled helm. Giving up on the starboard-side move the skipper barked out “Port side, quick!” and I dashed across the coachroof to position myself on the other side of the boat.

Yes, dashed. It was my first day after all.

And yes, in doing so, that vital old saw “one hand for yourself, one for the boat” lost itself in the moment and in the miasma of other information my somewhat underpowered brain was trying to process.

And that’s how I found myself in an untidy heap on the port side-deck. And, landing rather badly, I learnt an interesting new lesson. You can’t twist your ankle when you’re wearing sea boots. You twist your knee instead.

And, twisting my knee as I landed, I learnt another interesting new lesson. When your entire weight falls on a twisted knee, your kneecap dislocates.

An embarrassing little ambulance trip to A&E

It took me a while to work out what I’d done. My first instinct when I felt the pop was that I must have broken something but I couldn’t think what. When I managed to straighten myself up and feel my leg the absence of a kneecap at the front and the presence of one at the side solved that little mystery.

Fortunately, because of all the tendons and ligaments and muscles attached to them, kneecaps tend to pop back in of their own accord, as mine did without my noticing a few minutes later.

Unfortunately, because of all the tendons and ligaments and muscles attached to them, dislocating a kneecap tends to do quite a bit of what’s politely described as “soft tissue damage”.

And so my first sailing trip ended with a lesson in rigging a bosun’s chair for the other students, some lost bets on the first casualty of the trip, and a somewhat embarrassing winching up a harbour wall and into the back of an ambulance for me.

I spent a month with a groin-to-ankle cast on my left leg (and if you’ve never tried it let me tell you that’s an astonishingly inconvenient cast to have), three months of physio to get off crutches, a year with a discernable limp and several more before I could comfortably run on it again. While nursing my bruised ego and immobile leg over the following weeks my two financially distressed clients finally went to the wall and it was several months before I was able to go out and find work again.

As I said earlier, even by my standards, that was not a good year!

Though I did at least beat that tax investigation. 

Lessons learnt

I’m big on personal responsibility and squarely put the blame for this on myself. If you’re being asked to do something you’re not comfortable with, politely decline.

And I’m also big on looking on the bright side of experiences. I’ve never had another accident on a boat since, and while that’s always a risk beyond your control, I’ve learnt the “one hand for yourself and one for the boat” lesson very, very dearly.

While that stands me in good stead for the future, as I’ve said elsewhere, the problem with learning from mistakes in life, is that life seldom seems to screw you over the same way twice.