While reading all those books my hope was to one day own a boat

I went to University at Royal Roads in Victoria, BC.

The next captain in my life was Roger Mundell. The first week of class ( 1 year accelerated program ) this old guy stands up, says he is one of the students and asked if there were any people that wanted to learn how to sail. The first week at the Regatta just outside the Oak Bay Marina maybe 6 people from RRU showed up and we sailed around in light wind. Two weeks later a little colder and I was the only one to show up.

Throughout the winter I helped with various tasks on the 30 ft Yamaha sailboat. Having 20 - 40 boats jockeying for the start line with no engines is a game of environmental chess. Being responsible for trimming an impossibly large spinnaker while surfing downwind in a February squall was exhilarating to say the least. The art of utilizing the sailboat right of way rules to a captain's advantage was taught to us by another boat. We wound up broaching our boat during a squeeze play with another boat and the shore. Broaching for those that do not know is when your mast is closer to horizontal than vertical. My captain did this to ensure we did not run aground as we were making our way to a mark. Being no more than 30 meters from shore I clung to the high side lifelines and looked down to see Captain Roger grinning like he was on the best roller coaster ride of his life. He quickly told me to let go of the spinnaker halyard and marveled as the keel brought the world back to level. I then gathered up voluminous sail that was now in the water and back to the sailboat race we went.

I wanted to share this story more for how the captain dealt with the situation. He was calm, knew what to do and then got back to having fun after the drama.