I looked for some life-altering quote to start this little bit about Why I Sail, but didn’t come up with anything profound enough. Though I did come across one quote that I have read before, many times attributed to Mark Twain (there is much debate about this on The Internet). Regardless of who actually said this, it is certainly true, and it has much more to do with life in general rather than sailing specifically.
​
​
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
​
​
As I get older, this idea starts to feel more and more urgent, this need for exploration, for achieving life goals, this feeling of time running out. As I’ve learned about sailing and as I’ve become a sailor, I’ve realized that sailing is the means to drown out my ticking clock. Maybe this sounds dramatic, but I’ll explain:
 
When I started sailing around 2011, I learned in a boat called a Buccaneer 18 that was owned by a good friend. A Chrysler Buccaneer is an 18 foot dinghy that wants to put you in the water almost as soon as you step into it. It sails fast in light wind, and it’s hard to sail in anything over 12kts. It had no motor, so leaving the dock and returning to it felt like calculating the moon landing sometimes. It was unforgiving, any mistake was easily amplified if there was more than a light breeze. 
 
But it sure was a fun boat to sail. It was exciting when the wind was just right, the sails were trimmed in just so, and you were hiking out on the rail. It felt like you were flying just a few inches above the water (because you kinda were). It was a sort of difficult self-education in sailing, but I didn’t do it alone. My friend and I learned together.
 
Another boat entered the scene a couple years later. The O’Day Mariner 19, owned by the same friend and another in partnership, is a tremendously practical boat. It’s relatively small, but still a displacement hull with a swing keel. It’s safe, boasting a plaque that insists it will never capsize. The sail plan is such that it’s easy to keep her sailing on her feet. It has space in the cockpit to accommodate more than two people and it even has a little cabin.
 
After learning how to sail on the Buccaneer, this boat bored me to tears. My friend was more interested in sailing this new boat so we did, because sailing on a boring boat is better than no sailing. He told me about an article in a magazine called Small Craft Advisor that detailed the journey, albeit short lived, of two chaps that trailed this very boat, an O’Day Mariner, from Texas all the way to the Florida Keys. They had the idea to sail from Key Largo to Key West. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it. I don’t recall the details, but something inevitably broke I’m sure. 
 
My friend said, “Wouldn’t this be awesome? To take our Mariner and do that trip?” We talked about the idea now and then for a couple years. Quite honestly, I was terrified to take a trip like that. I had never sailed on the ocean! That’s crazy! He finally convinced me, or I convinced myself, I don’t remember, and so, we started planning and preparing. Part of the preparation for me was seeking out some more legitimate training. In June of 2018, I went and took some courses from the American Sailing Association (ASA). The ASA 101, 103 and 104 courses cover everything from the basics of sailing and the skills you need to dock a large boat in a new place to skills that have more to do with plumbing and electrical so that your floating home can continue to be your home. I spent a week on a Dufour Gib’Sea 43, leaving Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, sailing about 10 miles south of Miami, and returning to Ft. Lauderdale. 
 
This experience is what absolutely hooked me. Being on that boat, traveling from place to place, anchorage to anchorage, being self-sufficient for that week was truly amazing. 
 
It taught me that cruising on a sailboat is the closest thing to freedom that I know of.
 
Luckily, the ASA courses taught me that I did indeed know my stuff. That’s not to say that I didn’t learn anything new, rather that the knowledge that I had acquired to that point was correct. I also learned that I was, indeed, ready to take the Mariner to the Keys with my friend and that we wouldn’t drown in the Atlantic Ocean.
 
In late February of 2019, we hooked up the boat to the back of my friend’s Subaru Forester and started the long drive to Key Largo, at the northern end of the Keys. It took us two and a half days, but we spent the next ten days living and sailing on this tiny, little (for two adults) boat. The journey tested all our sailing skills: higher wind and waves, anchoring, navigating in completely unknown waters, living in a small space, fixing the boat when things broke (things always break on an old boat), and even running aground. 
 
This was the best adventure that I had ever been on. It still is.
 
From then on, sailing has been my passion, an obsession sometimes. I sail as often as I can during the season and sometimes I race on a Tartan Ten on Wednesdays and Sundays at Edgewater Yacht Club. Racing is fantastic. It gives us sailors in Cleveland something to do besides sail out and around The Crib. It forces you to be keenly aware of the wind, the waves, your point of sail, the trim of the sails, even the placement of the crew on the boat. It all matters when you’re trying to go 0.1 knots faster than the other boats.
 
I love everything about sailing and I'm eager to share the experience of sailing with as many people as I can. 
 
Here’s why I teach sailing: being present for the moment(s) that a new sailor “gets it” is kind of magical. Harnessing the wind to push and pull our boats through the water and across oceans is an ancient craft. The fact that we, as a species and culture, still use sailboats to recreate, and in many cases survive, is really something to wrap your head around. To be a part of another person’s journey in sailing, watching and helping them “learn the ropes,” and witnessing them fall in love with the peace and serenity of the boat effortlessly gliding through water is indescribably satisfying. And I get new sailing friends out of the deal! It’s a win-win!
 
So how does all this explain my dramatic ticking clock concerns from the beginning? As a sailing career progresses, you naturally develop goals. Maybe it’s just learning the basics. Maybe it’s buying a boat. Maybe it’s crossing an ocean. My goal is to harness the wind to find as much freedom as I can. My goal is to take all the knowledge that I have about sailing and all that I have yet to learn to explore and dream and discover. The Earth is enormous and most of it is water! The goal in the near future is to live aboard a sailboat for at least half the year, starting in the Caribbean, island hopping for a while with my wife. If it works out, maybe I sail the Atlantic, stop at the Azores, cruise into the Mediterranean. Maybe I go the other way, through the Panama canal and across the Pacific to Australia, Southeast Asia, then to Africa. Who knows?
 
I can go anywhere. Maybe I’ll see you there.