We are sailing...we are sailing...we are capsizing [sung in a Rod Stewart voice of course]

Today we went sailing!

After our wonderful day at a local sailing club a month ago, we made the big step of joining for the year. I'm not what you would call a 'water' person and although dh used to sail a boat on the river when he was a kid, that's quite some time ago!

So, feeling rather daunted, the kids and I had a brief go at the club last week. Today, however, we had a full day on (and off) the lake with a bunch of other beginners and new members, mostly home educating families. First we learnt how to rig a 'topper' (see photo below for what a topper looks like) and then we went out and sailed. It was pretty gusty, so I chickened out of taking a topper out, especially having seen several others capsize. Even the supposedly un-capsizable 'Optimist' boats went over several times (dh and ds2 had a rather wet experience!)

I don't have any photos of today as I was too busy, but these photos show roughly what the boats look like.

A topper

An Optimist.

And no, I didn't look that cool when I was sailing it, I was rather more wet and flustered!

The kids had a good time, but didn't get out quite as much as they would have liked as there was a race going on for most of the morning. At one point I was sailing with ds2 and we reached an area of the lake where the wind just suddenly died. We found that we couldn't tack to return back to shore because the boat had totally lost momentum. Eventually a gust of wind gave us some speed and we could then tack. I did feel a bit of a plonker just floating in the middle of all the race boats, trying to keep clear of them and at the same time not going anywhere! I'm sure with a bit more experience we'll get the hang of it, but to me it's like learning to drive all over again, lol.

Dd1 loved paddling and was just happy pottering in the sandpit and wading in the shallows. She wanted to swim, but decided that the water was just a bit too cold. I guess she'll be pestering me for a trip to the swimming pool now, she's such a water baby.