Five O'Clock Somewhere

Welcome to Five O'Clock Somewhere, where it doesn't matter what time zone you're in; it's five o'clock somewhere. We'll look at rural life, especially as it happens in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, cats, sailing (particularly Etchells racing yachts), and bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

My Sailing Goals for 2006

The challenge has been issued …

Tillerman has laid down the gauntlet, challenging all of us sailors to set forth what our goals are for the coming year. While I don’t ordinarily get into the whole New Year’s Resolution thing, it does make more sense when dealing with a specific small area of my life, such as sailing or writing. So I’ll start with sailing.

  1. Learn more about racing. Up until now, my participation in racing has been fairly casual, being crew on someone else’s boat, or being on the committee boat. But now, with the Adams Cup team, I’m going to be learning more, especially if I end up at the helm.

  1. Overcome fear. I’m an experienced enough sailor that I don’t worry about the boat tipping over, something some less-experienced crew members have a problem with. But I do worry an awful lot about doing something really stupid and making a fool of myself, and that worry keeps me from stretching my limits. I have to keep reminding myself that only some people are fortunate enough to learn from others’ mistakes; the rest of us have to BE the others.

  1. Get into shape. Or at least into better shape than I am in now. I can’t afford the luxury of a health club membership or a personal trainer, but I can do more exercise and less unhealthful eating. And I’m sure I’ll be getting tips from one of our sailing coaches, who is also a college track coach.

  1. Come in first or second in the first round of the Adams Cup (the top two teams will move up to the next level). That’s going to be difficult; I’ll probably be on the New Mexico B team, and there are some pretty tough competitors in Colorado. At least being this far south gives us a chance to get in more practice than people get further north, but at least one of the Colorado teams goes to Texas to train, to get a jump on everyone else.

3 Comments:

Blogger Tillerman said...

Great ideas. I didn't expect my post on goals would be taken as a challenge by others. It was meant to be a dump of the eternal internal conversation going on in my head between my multiple personalities as one commenter called them. Now you guys writing about your goals are starting to make me think I should take the subject more seriously.

Or at least one of me thinks so.

Sat Jan 21, 07:28:00 AM MST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, it was Sherry over at Stay of Execution who threw down the gauntlet to her sailors. Tillerman just threw it out to the rest of us.. :D

As I say to my photography students: "learning photography (or in this case sailing) is done through making mistakes, the more mistakes you make the faster you learn..." I just try to keep the mistakes on the less expensive side.

The "get in shape" part is one that we all need to do. The body core is very important in sailing... so don't just work on the arms and legs...

As for the Adams Cup... good luck... I have faith that you'll do well.

Sat Jan 21, 07:33:00 AM MST  
Blogger Carol Anne said...

One disadvantage I have as a skipper commanding a crew is that unlike dinghy sailors, I might have crew that either doesn't understand or disagrees with me.

Tillerman, you may be the only dinghy sailor I know whose crew might mutiny. ;)

Tue Jan 24, 03:40:00 AM MST  

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