Marvins first sail

The weekend of 1-17-10 was a tough weekend to
compress into a sailing diary entry. Usually by days end
the topic to delve into is clear in my mind. Often it is
the stuck truck, ejected mast or sometimes the guy or
gal that put his or her runners on backwards and gets a
non stop roasting for the day. There always seems to
be something to write about. My English teacher would
have been in seventh heaven to get me writing these
diaries in school and my defense then was it had to be
something that captured my interest--- poetry didn’t
cut the cake. Luckily I see my English teacher often
and finally got the courage up to give her the sailing
diary address. I knew better than to ask her to grade
it.
When starting the sailing diary I had no idea that my
11 year old nephew would be using it as a reference for
what we called in my school days "Show and Tell".
Marvin being in the sixth grade and growing up in the
cyber generation seldom looks beyond the length of his
computer screen for a source of entertainment. He
didn’t spend his youth in waist high, hand knit woolen
socks while trying to master a tricycle styled sled with
handlebars called a Snow-A-Go-Go, which usually went
about thirty feet, did a nose dive and pitched me over
the handlebars. The fact that Marvin was willing to
give up his gidgy-gadgets for a day on ice with his
siblings , Dad and uncle’s is testament to the lure of
the ice. No doubt he has listened to the endless tales
of iceboating from his elders and couldn’t help but
wonder if it’s all that we crack it up to be. Lets face it,
if your going to be talking iceboating at the fourth of
July picnic it better be one of your better stories and at
times we do bam it up a bit to hold the interest of our
audience.
Marvin’s special day was sunny, warm and windless.
The perfect day to experience the feel of the cockpit,
steering, sheet and inner workings of our craft. Being
less mass than his elders Marvin could make our boats
go in the light to non existent winds that were
sidelining many a sailor. As I sat in Yellow Fever stalled
in the middle of Toddy I heard the clip clop of Little
Monsta coming from behind me. I turned my head to
see the full sail and Marvin’s glowing face as he
approached me with his dad tagging along behind to
oversee and give advice. It was one of the few times I
was happy to see someone sail past me. We can give
advice to young sailors till the cows come home but
getting the feel is something that only comes with
doing it. Marvin was getting the feel for Little Monsta
even though his feet hardly reached the steering
pedals. The creek of the wooden mast , flex of the hull
, sound of the runners, whistling of the wind and
firmness of the sheet are all sensations that the finest
of computer games have yet to provide. Could it be
that Marvin was falling for a sport that uses no
batteries, burns no fuel , makes us scream like
cheerleaders and requires no internet connection?
After tire kicking our vacated boats in the pits Marvin
realized he could reach the foot steering pedals in
Iceaholic with the help of Vanessa’s four inch foam
backrest. Once again he proved to us that weight is a
factor in light wind sailing as he reached, tacked and
jibed his way from the pits to the pressure ridge and
back more than once with dad doing his best to keep
up but working Marvin more like a horse trainer in a
paddock than a mail man being chased by a dog.
Rumor has it that Marvin is our new sixth grade
iceboating advocate and has developed his own method
of telling ice boater stories. He now has the feel for
it-- on and off the ice. Congratulations Marvin!!

Kevin