Ohhhhhh F**********

A couple of years ago (when they were living in Ohio) I went to visit and my Dad asked if I wanted to go out sailing. I had never been so I was nervous, not for sailing but for being on the receiving end of a “how to” lesson from my Dad, something that often times ended in an argument because of our very different communication styles. As we were driving to the lake we talked in depth about him needing to be patient and explain everything like I am a kindergartner so he doesn’t get frustrated and I don’t get flustered and we can both enjoy ourselves on the water, something we both loved dearly.

Everything was going so smoothly. It was a slightly windy day but nothing crazy. We sailed around the lake and were heeling on the farthest point of the lake from the docks, both completely leaned over the side of the boat (we were not small humans…) when a HUGE gust of wind came and the boat quickly (but also slowly??) capsized. We both said “ohhh fuuuuuckkkkk” as we went over. My Dad slipped into the water and then looked up at me sitting on the side of a capsized boat, waiting to see what my reaction would be before he reacted himself. It took a stunned second or two to assess the situation but then I started laughing my ass off and he immediately followed. He convinced me to slip into the water (I did not want to leave my dry and semi comfortable perch…) and we went around and hopped on the keel until the boat was back to being right side up in the water, used each other to (not so gracefully) climb back into the boat (again, not small people without great upper body arm strength), bailed as much as we could, and assessed the damage.

The boom had come off and the mainsail fell so both were sitting in a waterlogged heap in my lap. The jib was only half working so we slowly limped our way back to the dock. It took almost 2 hours to do so. Once we made it back to dry land, we laughed our asses off some more. ~Kate