Sailing Just Because You Can

One of the great things about racing is that when you sign up for a race, you feel pretty committed to going out sailing. But what if you don’t race or don’t sign up? What gets you out sailing?

The truth is the vast majority of sailors don’t race, but a much higher percentage of sailing is done by racers. Why is that?

When you have a sailboat, live near a bay, and have generally reliable wind and weather making it possible to sail any time you want, there’s no real reason to pick one day for sailing over the next. The ‘always available’ pleasure of sailing can be one of the reasons people don’t get around to it as often as they imagine they would. Regardless, every time we go sailing we see folks out sailing just because they can.

Seeing a Maine-built Hinckley reminds us of a big difference between sailing in New England or the Great Lakes, and in the Bay Area. Their season is short, so when the ice clears and the boat is launched they sail like crazy and then put the boat away. In California you can sail any time you want, so what’s the rush? For that reason, we suspect many sailors from the icy high latitudes sail more days in three or four months than Californians sail in a year.

This 1966 Pearson Ensign, pictured above, has been a mainstay of our Maine social sails for about 27 years. We actually bought her out of the Cal Berkeley dry storage yard all those years ago with a trailer, for about $2500, and towed her back to Maine. She’s still sailing with the same suit of sails but she’s only in the water from around the June Summer Sailstice to mid-September. But she gets in a lot of sailing..

As a parting shot, or a parting thought, the appropriately named Beneteau Oceanis 41 Seas the Day reminds us that just because you have a boat ready to sail, in a slip on the Bay, doesn’t mean you’ll be sailing. In fact, most harbormasters guess that only 10% of the boats in their harbors go out once a month. Those that go out the most are the racers. One silver lining of the pandemic has been staying close to home, close to our boats and able to use them more. The coast and Bay also tend to have some of the cleanest, freshest air in Northern California.

The Bay and coast are nearby and the weekend is never more than five days away. And September and October are two of the very best months for sailing. What are you doing this weekend? What – no boat? Come to the Latitude 38 Fall Crew List Party at the Bay Model in Sausalito on September 9. We’ll do our best to make sure you never have to spend a weekend ashore again.