The Common Bond Of Sailing
Published: Friday, September 28, 2018
By: Ken Quant
We all need people — others to help fill our lives with adventure, fun, and passion. Of course, we all have some form of a family that we inherit at birth to share our lives for good or bad. However, it seems that many of the happiest people I know create a circle of friends that enjoy similar activities. Their common interests leading them to form a common bond. For my wife and I, the sailing community has filled our lives with an amazing array of interesting characters that have truly enhanced our orbit.
Our larger sailing community is actually split into many different groups. The smallest and closest of these being our race crew. We generally like to have 7-8 people onboard for any given race, so we have gotten to know dozens of different people very closely over the years. Since race crews need to work together as a team and are basically a captive audience until they return to shore, you have a great opportunity to get to know each other. Win or lose, you’re all in it together, which helps us all create a common bond that crosses generations and ignores politics. Many of our closest friendships have evolved from our race crews.
Since you need more than one boat to race, we have also gotten to know many of the skippers and crews of the other competitors. Over the years, we have raced in numerous different fleets and are currently involved in two weekly social race series. There is usually some type of post-race gathering to rehash the race events, so there is always a shared experience for discussion with all the participants. Through these fleet races, we have literally gotten to know hundreds of other sailors over the years.
Races need coordination, so we have also become members of two area yacht clubs to help support the cause. The MAST Yacht Club is a very informal social group that enjoys sailboats and races as a weekly excuse. There is no club facility and we take turns being race committee, so there are very limited expenses. We mostly gather on the docks at the marina after the races or have house parties during the offseason. There are also several organized fleet events during the winter to help us stay in touch. We have become very close friends with many of the members of this truly organic sailing community.
We also belong to the South Shore Yacht Club. The largest yacht club in Wisconsin, it is very traditional with all the trappings you’d expect. Their Wednesday night SS-SSS (South Shore - Social Sailing Series) race series is what originally attracted me to the club when I first moved to town more than 30 years ago. With 50+ boats racing weekly and free beer under the tent afterward, how could I go wrong? As a fresh transplant, it was a great way to get involved in the local sailing scene. The people I initially met at the club during these races ended up being the catalyst and heart of our seemingly ever-expanding local sailing friendship base.
Of course, none of this would have ever been possible without the friends in my hometown sailing community who originally got me involved in the sport. I did not come from a boating family and, honestly, couldn’t have told you a fishing boat from a sailboat until high school. Thankfully, a friend talked me into skipping cross-country practice one day to help tag-team his Laser on a very windy day. After a thrilling first ride surfing waves, I was hooked. For the rest of high school and throughout college, I spent most of the summers sailing everything from Sunfish to Hobies to windsurfers to large keel boats, all with an amazingly fun group of hometown friends. To this day, my wife and I remain in touch with most of them and consider them all to be on the very good side of our family ledger.
This article first appeared in the Fall Issue (Sept/Oct) 2018 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt Magazine.
tags: Boat Club, Racing, Sailing
