On Tuesday I had the opportunity to crew on the “Coyote”, a 42-foot sailboat owned by my neighbour, who incidentally works in the same department as I do. You can see a few pictures of the boat here, here (boat on the left) and here (boat on the far right). The pictures were of an earlier race, but the last picture is representative of the rush of boats as they all try to occupy the same bit of water at the same time. The race was very short (starts at 6:30, sun sets at 7:25), but was a good introduction to the sport of sailing larger boats. Previous to this I’ve only sailed small boats and windsurfers, and while the concepts are the same (wind hits sails, moves boat) there’s a lot more to do on a larger boat. It’s a few seconds of controlled chaos followed by several minutes of relative calm, until the skipper calls for a tack (change of direction for you sailing neophytes) and the cycle begins again. My only regret is that I’ve now caught the sailing bug permanently.