Sailing Wars

It was one of those summer days at Pender Harbour that started slowly and turned itself into a love affair by two in the afternoon.  A warm breeze, playful gulls circling in the thermals, and Canadian flags active around the bay.  First one sail appeared, most likely a sabot.  Sea Wolf actually, skippered by our long time cabin friend Rob.  Then Puff, the courageous thirty year-old Mirror 11 left the dock .  Naomi was at the helm and Jeremy tended the jib.  Two sails, two proud, aging, wooden sailboats on Gunboat Bay, the way it has been ever since we started coming to the cabin twenty years ago.  Rob and I are a bit grayer now, and on this day my daughter Naomi was sailing the Mirror 11 she learned on seventeen years ago when she was five.  

I saw the opportunity and launched another sabot, eager to trim the tiny sail, and find the lazy rhythm of sailing at the summer cabin.  The breeze was perfect for our little boats. I settled onto a starboard tack, tiller in one hand and sponge in the other because fifty-year-old sabots at summer cabins tended to leak a little. Every now and then I would end up on the same tack as Naomi or Rob, and the race was on.  We weren’t racing in any particular direction mind you, just two or three sailboats trying to go faster than the other, the same way those summer cruisers in Georgia Straight seem to be coaxing every ounce of speed out of their sailboat because someone else is going in the same direction. I’ve been guilty of that once or twice in our Mirage 33.

But at some point, on this particular day, on a convergent course with Naomi and Jeremy in Puff, one of them pulled out a paddle, or maybe it was a bucket. I was expecting a friendly wave as our two boats met, and was caught totally unprepared by what came next. Within seconds, I was soaked and sitting in a pool of water in my sabot.  I had been blasted by a well aimed broadside from Puff- yes, as I recall it was a bucket of sea-water. I floundered around to find a weapon to engage the enemy.  Perfect.  I had a small bailing bucket and a half-paddle so I tacked around and headed for Puff. 

The laughter was on, war-woops were sounded and caution was thrown to the wind. We spent the next half hour going in circles, engaged in a huge water fight.  Rob joined the attack and we tried to gang up on the larger Mirror.  It was a challenge to splash another boat while sailing your own, occasionally being dinged on the head by the boom as it swung across the wind or nearly capsizing from sudden tacks.  Often I’d let go of the tiller to load my bucket or fire the paddle. Every now then boats rubbed together as the chaos built.  I remember Jeremy and I in a tug o’ war over his bucket (mine was half the size).  If I could just grab his bucket and start filling Puff with water, victory would be mine. Instead he pulled my rudder out and all was lost. I didn’t care though. I was a child again.

This game we played was like any other childhood game except there were no forts or secret passages or bicycles turned motorcycles.  Instead, we used small sailboats in a little bay.  Wind, sails, imagination and laughter.  Here was a fifty-four year old high school counselor, a vice-principal, and a couple of twenty-somethings reverting back to childplay, the kind of uncomplicated play that has no agenda, no deadline, no rules and is all fun.  I’ve raced in the Swiftsure Classic and Southern Straights, cruised all over southern BC, and played sports all my life, but the simple act of sailing a little dinghy within arms reach of someone you love and unloading a bucket of salt water onto the enemy holds my fondest memories. We laugh till our sides hurt while manouvering for a good position to fire a broadside.

Sailing wars have some history in Gunboat Bay, going way back to when our kids were little.  I remember Stan, our neighbour who taught university physics most of his life coming down to the dock one day as our family was preparing to set sail in several dinghies.

“Peter?” enquired Stan in his matter of fact way. “Do you think there might be sailing wars today?”

“Oh, I expect so Stan.  The kids are gathering seaweed as part of their arsenal.”

“Ok,  I’ll be back in a while.”

What I didn’t know was that Stan had traveled into Sechelt the day before to buy fabric to make a flag for his sixteen foot Tansar.  I regularly pretended I was the English navy and shouted out naval type commands to no one in particular as boats were grappling .  So Stan showed up that day with a large Jolly Roger and hoisted it up the mast.  I guess Stan had become a pirate.

He often came back to the dock soaking wet sporting a huge grin, the rim of the Tilly hat not quite as firm as it should have been.  And Stan sometimes brought along unsuspecting crew, visitors, who didn’t know their first sailing experience was going to be somewhat of a battle.

And then there’s Paul, my cycling buddy of twenty-five years visiting the cabin with his family and teaching everyone to sail.  It wasn’t long before sailing wars broke out and our kids became deck hands on a Spanish galleon or an English man o’ war.  One day Naomi, Megan and I were bearing down on Paul, Nathan and Neal.  We had the faster CL 14 and Paul and the boys were in Puff.  We came speeding in, upwind on the same tack, and the exchange of broadsides began.  Paddles splashing, buckets of water hurled, and maybe even a clump of seaweed thrown.  As we passed the slower Mirror, a small cleat on our boom caught the windward stay of Puff. 

“Dad!” shouted Naomi. “We’re hooked onto Puff!”

The little Mirror lurched ahead as she was being towed by the faster boat.  Paul, sensing disaster, lept with a battle cry from his helm position towards the snarl and tried to push our boom away.  Of course small dinghies don’t have much tolerance for sudden weight shifts.  Puff was dismasted, Paul was floating beside the boat, his Tilly hat not far away, and all of us were laughing and shouting at the same time.  No doubt some curious cottagers were leaning on their deck railings somewhat puzzled at the shenanigans on the water.  We towed Puff back to the dock for repairs and the story telling began.   

Richard, another neighbour, built the original cabin as well as the sabot ‘Sea Wolf’ fifty years ago in North Vancouver. He’s the guy who started all this sailing in Gunboat Bay. Now he sails ‘Sea Fox’ a fast new fiberglass sabot that’s won the Gunboat Bay Regatta several times, although in last year’s regatta he managed to capsize at the finish line in front of a giggling crowd gathered on the point to watch the races.   Richard preferred peaceful sails on the bay in Sea Fox, to counter his busy work schedule in Vancouver.  He didn’t come looking for sailing wars when he was out, but would occasionally end up defending himself from attackers like Stan or our kids.  One day after maybe the fifth broadside between three or four boats, we sailed up behind Richard and I think it was my son Nathan who leaned out of Puff and began to push down on Sea Fox’s transom.

“Stop!” cried Richard. “You’re going to sink my boat!”

“We know!” I laughed, as water poured in over the gunwales. We were close to shore so we helped empty Sea Fox, Richard scampered back in and the two boats sailed back to the dock, smiles all around. 

So on this day last summer when the wind was warm and sunlight cast diamonds across the water, four adults found their childhood again, and for half an hour, the world was perfect.  We hadn’t played sailing wars for at least five years and it was good to be back.