Gone with the wind: Teaching the blend of ‘you, the boat, the water and the wind’

A puff of wind tugs the sails, lifting one side of the boat as it heels to starboard. Three passengers lean over the edge to counterbalance the Petrol as she skiffs through the light-stippled water of Lake Union at sunset.


	One of the small wooden sailboats in the SailNOW! instructional program at the Center for Wooden Boats makes its way across Lake Union. Gilbert W. Arias / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Instructor Stephen Kinnaman asks the helmsman to tack, or turn the bow of the boat through the eye of the wind.

"What do you say?" he prompts, as a student prepares to change course with the tiller.

"Helm's . . . helm's . . . ," she stumbles.

"A-lee," he supplies.

Devony Fitch, in the midst of her 10th SailNOW! lesson, smiles. "I think the language is what gets me. It's driving me crazy," she says amiably, not looking crazed at all.

She believes that the epiphany will come, that she'll learn to harness the wind like it's second nature.

Kinnaman, who's been sailing since age 8, believes it, too. "When it comes, when the 'Aha!' moment arrives, just take it in," he encourages. "Women are better at that Gestalt sort of thing."

Sailing promises the timeless romance of wanderlust, of making your way by the stars. It captures the awesome power of wind. And it sates man's taste for freedom and self-reliance, sprinkled with a little danger.


With the wind in their faces, sailing students Mike Skutack, left, and Dina Spangenberg, center, get under way on Lake Union with the help of SailNOW! instructor Lee Adams. Gilbert W. Arias / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Learning to sail is like weaving a mental and physical tapestry. It takes strength to hold a sail steady against high winds that can cause rope burn. It requires quick decision-making to deal with changing conditions and ingenuity to handle broken equipment. Good sailors have or develop intuition - the kind in which you can sense the direction of the wind by the way it prickles the hairs on your neck.

Patience, too, is a virtue in sailing, where a dead wind zone can mean hours or days of lolling with nothing but your own company or perhaps a good book to pass the time.

"A lot of people realize that it's a lot more than they expected," said Mindy Koblenzer, director of the SailNOW! program. "Some thought they could just set the direction and sit back."

The popular day-sailing program has been around since 1989 at the Center for Wooden Boats. Between 250 and 300 adult students a year learn the basics through SailNOW!, a stepping stone to racing, teaching or even sailing around the world, as some of its graduates have done.

The program was created from a desire to see the center's classic wooden boats out on the water, not just dockside specimens of history.


	Classic boats at the Center for Wooden Boats lie moored and ready for action on Lake Union.

Elsewhere, students learn on modern boats made of synthetic materials; it's rare for a sailor's deck shoes to grace the planks of a classic wooden sailboat. With no engines or brakes, it's only your skill, quick thinking and the will of the wind - which can shift capriciously - that power, steer and stop the boat.

"It's a throwback to another era and there's something a little quaint about it," said Jay Culbert, one of the volunteer instructors who make the program possible and keep it an affordable $250 for four months of lessons.

Many of these instructors, whose teaching ability and sailing experience vary, swear that a lifetime addiction will result from one outing. But if it takes longer, you can keep coming back.

"We don't fail anyone in this program," says Culbert. "We just send them out again until they get it."

New students have much to absorb, starting at shore school. They learn the vocabulary of mariner speak, a complex lexicon. There are no less than four spellings of the word for a basic sailing turn - jibe, gibe, gybe and jib. Some will pronounce the direction from which the wind is blowing as it's spelled: leeward. Others say loo-ward.

And never, ever call that braided, twined stuff "rope." It's just plain wrong to mariners, who refer to it as "line."

Even the very act of sailing - what do you call it?

Vern Velez, a 67-year-old fixture at the Center for Wooden Boats who has been sailing his whole life, still ponders that question: "I don't know what to call it - whether it's an art or a hobby or an ability or a sport, I don't know."


The sails of a small wooden sailboat catch the wind and afternoon sunlight on Lake Union as it cuts a romantic figure against the modern Seattle skyline. Each year, about 250-300 adult students join the SailNOW! program at the Center for Wooden Boats to take day-sailing lessons aboard the center's classic wooden craft.

What he does know is that sailing is like a "great communion," a spiritual blend of "you, the boat, the water and the wind."

On top of the art and communion, sailing has a few lighthearted fashion concerns.

On the Petrol, Greg Beckman jokes about an impending collision as he maneuvers the boat out of the tight dock area.

"We're going to hit that duck. We're going to hit that duck," he yells in a crescendo of mock panic.

But this boat, an Alaskan Cedar beauty of just under 19 feet, has worse problems.

Pointing from the dock, Koblenzer whispers, "the fender."

Egads. The inflatable rubber bumper, which acts as a cushion between the dock and the boat, is dragging in the water.

"Oh, embarrassing," Fitch murmurs at the faux pas.


	The father of the SailNOW! program, Vern Velez is a lifelong sailor and a longtime volunteer at the Center for Wooden Boats.

Other perils include smacking into a parked yacht or shaving within inches of a hard-edged buoy.

Close calls aren't unusual in Lake Union, which is a great place to learn to sail because of the squirrelly winds and heavy traffic. Salty-dogs-in-training have to navigate around powerboats, kayaks and floatplanes - all while learning the right-of-way rules.

Yet at the same time, there's comfort and safety in its confined shores, lack of sea squalls and the proximity of land in every direction.

"I've lived in Seattle my whole life. I do a lot of hiking and I thought, I've never been on the water," said Julie Van Pelt, 31.

Though it's never happened to a SailNOW! student on the lake, falling into the water is a possibility.

"Man overboard. Man overboard," an instructor calls out casually one day.

The helmsman turns the boat 180 degrees and heads toward the red floating cushion that has been in the water for a little over a minute. Not bad.

But the captain lets the sails go slack late and the boat comes in too fast, smacking into the hypothetical sailor. Oops.

No problem; they'll do it again and again until it's almost instinctive.

Fitch, 32, isn't just waiting for the Zen of sailing to happen to her. Since recently losing her job at the now-defunct Kozmo.com, Fitch plans to schedule lessons several times a week and read the companion book, "The Complete Sailor"

There are two things Fitch hopes to do at the end of this class: She wants to pass this skill to her daughter, Hannah Keyes, 7; and she wants to take her eightysomething grandfather, a retired gill-netter and seasoned seafarer, out for a sail.

"I always had men in my life who sailed," she said. "I wanted to learn to do it by myself."

The following offer lessons for beginning sailors:

Seattle Sailing Club: 206-782-5100, www.seattlesailing.com

Island Sailing Club, Kirkland: 425-822-2470, www.islandsailingschool.com

SailNOW! (Center for Wooden Boats): 206-382-2628, www.cwb.org

Renton Sailing Club (register through Renton Community Center): 425-430-6700, www.halcyon.com/rscsail

Windworks Sailing Center: 206-784-9386, www.sail1.com

Mount Baker Rowing and Sailing Center: 206-386-1913

P-I reporter Kristin Dizon can be reached at 206-448-8118 or kristindizon@seattle-pi.com

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