Dear readers,

Does this sound familiar? On the way to your sailing trip, you’re still getting annoyed about train cancellations and flight delays, but as soon as you’re on board, you take delays in your stride. Provided, of course, that you don’t spend the whole week of your holiday stuck in the harbour. But apart from the worst-case scenario – too little wind? Too much? – then the leg of the journey is simply postponed until tomorrow. After all, you can’t argue with the weather.

Or perhaps it is?

Actually, sailors spend a surprising amount of time doing exactly that. I’d like to put forward a controversial and, at first glance, contradictory theory here: sailors are both the most laid-back people and the biggest grumblers. When there’s no wind, we long for wind. When it’s blowing hard, we’d prefer it to be a bit lighter. And it rarely comes from the right direction either. If the wind keeps shifting, trimming the sails becomes a nuisance. On the other hand, if it stays steady for hours on end, it somehow gets a bit boring too. We’re constantly on the hunt for the perfect day’s sailing: enough wind, but please not too much. Steady, but please not boring. Challenging, but certainly not exhausting.

A year ago, I was sailing in Brittany. Instead of the breeze I’d been hoping for, there was a lull for days on end. This year in the Solent, the opposite extreme awaited us. On the very first day, we were stuck in harbour due to strong winds, and over the following days, the wind strength and direction seemed to change every minute. No sooner had we trimmed the sails properly than the next gust or shift in wind direction would hit. For a holiday cruise, where you want to cover as much ground as possible whilst staying as relaxed as possible, that would probably have been exhausting. For a training cruise, however, it was perfect.

There was always something to do: re-trimming the sails, reefing, adjusting the course or reassessing the weather forecast. One thing’s for sure: I learnt more this week than I would have on a trip with a steady twelve knots of wind from the right direction.

I think that’s exactly what makes this sport so fascinating for many sailors. However much we grumble about the wind – that’s exactly how we want it: unpredictable and uncontrollable, in a way that few things in everyday life still are. We cannot impose our will on external circumstances. The wind isn’t interested in our sailing itinerary or our booking at the next harbour. So we adapt. We wait. We change our plans. Or we use the time to learn something. In the case of my manoeuvring trip in the Solent, that meant theory sessions over a steaming cup of tea below deck whilst 30-knot gusts tugged at our anchor chain outside.

And perhaps that’s also why, after this week’s sailing trip, I came home feeling much more relaxed than when I set off. Because when you’re sailing, you learn anew every day to come to terms with the things you can’t change anyway.

Jill Grigoleit

YACHT editor

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