The Lesson

From: Luigi Semenzato (luigi@shadow.eecs.berkeley.edu-DeleteThis)
Date: Sun Sep 24 1995 - 20:57:31 PDT

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From: Luigi Semenzato <luigi@shadow.eecs.berkeley.edu-DeleteThis>
Message-Id: <199509250357.UAA20535@shadow.eecs.berkeley.edu-DeleteThis>
To: wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis
Subject: The Lesson
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 1995 20:57:31 -0700

I already sent this to rec.windsurfing.

THE LESSON

Andrea called on Sunday morning. `Gigi, I am depressed. My software
is not selling and Martha is in Kentucky.' Luckily, this is a different
Martha.

I was still dazed from sleeping too much, but nevertheless I came up
with a brilliant idea. `Tell you what, I'll give you a windsurfing
lesson, this afternoon at the Alameda beach' I said. `How about
that?'

`Really? That would be nice. Will you sail too?'

`I don't think so, there isn't enough wind for me there.'

`Won't you get bored then?'

`No, no. I like giving lessons. I haven't done it in a long time.'
So long, in fact, that I didn't quite remember what usually happens.
I picked him up and we drove together to the beach, but first we
stopped for a sandwich. When we got back to the surfmobile, it would
not start. It made a rickety noise when I turned the key. `It won't
start' I said.

`Come on Gigi, don't pull my leg.' He calls me Gigi because he is
from Veneto.

`No, it really isn't starting. Can't you tell? Come on, get out and
give me a push.'

With a wry smile on his face, Andrea got out. `Gigi, if this is one
of your stupid jokes, you're gonna pay for it.' He pushed. I
released the clutch in third gear and the engine started immediately.
I briefly considered driving away, then I stopped and waited for him.
`Good' I said. `This was the warm-up.'

At the beach we rented a large board, then I gave him a choice of
wetsuit. He could borrow either my 4/3 semi-dry Northern California
suit, or my 2/1 Maui shortie. The wind was light and the air
reasonably warm. I recommended the shortie, but psychologically it's
hard to believe that the water in the San Francisco Bay can be
anything but deadly freezing, so he picked the full suit. I was going
to just wear my swimsuit, but since the shortie was available I put it
on.

The bottom at the Alameda beach slopes gently, and one can stand on it
a long way out. We walked until the water was knee deep, then I
explained the terminology, the balance dynamics, and what he should
try to do. I gave a little demo. He got on the board, uphauled, and
in a typical stroke of beginner's luck he sailed for about a hundred
yards, then fell. The water was chest deep out there. `Great' I
thought and started wading toward him. I watched him get up and fall
a few times, but before I reached him he was moving again, on a broad
reach which was going to take him quite a bit downwind of our starting
point.

I corrected my course to intercept him, but he fell in, got up, and
started sailing in the wrong direction, away from the beach. Aw
shucks, where is he going, I thought. I could not fathom his
strategy. Perhaps he wanted to get more practice in his most
successful direction. Perhaps he was simply exhausted and confused,
that state of comatose drunkenness that beginners can achieve so
amazingly fast. The fact was, I had little hope of reaching him
before he was so tired that he would just collapse on the
beach---assuming he could get to it. My role as a teacher
was over.

Several other windsurfers at various stages of proficiency populated
the surroundings, together with many bathers and waders and inflatable
boaters. I enjoyed this Mediterranean scene for a while until I
caught a brief sparkle near the horizon. I looked better and saw
flashes from the sun reflecting on a far-away monofilm sail. It did
not move with the sleepy roll of a slogging sail, but with the
nervous, vibrant quiver of a sail on a plane.

With my student gone and nothing better to do, it seemed worth a try.
I ran to the surfmobile, unloaded my stuff, rigged a five-seven and
went in. I slogged for fifteen minutes, then the wind picked up. A
wonderful, steady wind, and round, chop-free three-feet swell with the
occasional steep face for an effortless, smooth jump. I didn't
understand how I be having could have so much fun until I became
conscious of the spray hitting my bare calf. That was it! The
shortie! Suddenly I was in Maui again: light and limber and free from
the clumsy armor-like 4/3 semi-dry.

Ahead of me was the Peninsula and I thought I could see Candlestick
Park. I almost gave in to the sudden impulse of sailing there. Then
I felt responsible for my student, and for myself as well, since if
anything broke halfway through I would easily go hypothermic. I jibed
and sailed back to the beach, sliding from swell to swell for extra
speed, and keeping a low-power plane almost til I hit sand.

Andrea was lying on the beach. `Gigi, I am exhausted' he said.

`Don't worry, it's normal' I reassured him.

`I had no trouble going out, but it was really hard to come back in.
Also, after I lifted the sail, I really had to push hard like this,
and... I mean, it didn't feel right. And the foot, I couldn't quite
put it where, you know, it should go.'

`Mm. Maybe you should change sail.' We went to the rental hut and
got a smaller sail. `Try different positions' I told him. `Find the
most comfortable.'

`OK, but... what am I doing wrong?'

`I don't know. You have to teach yourself. Experiment. There is no
more theory. I can't follow you. Not with this board.' It was true.
I would be trying to waterstart all the time. So I sailed out with an
almost perfectly clear conscience. The wind was waiting for me and
greeted me with a steady push, and I was back in Maui. That day at
Alameda was so perfect and so unexpected that it still makes me happy
to think of it, in spite of Andrea's subsequent decision to invest his
time and money in `sailing' lessons, you know, that odd kind of
sailing where you sit down and the mast is always up.

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