The Art of Not Giving Up

I aim this missive not at those who are proficient at the fine art of MUSTO Skiff sailing. Not those who can skip about the surface of this high-powered ironing board with impunity like Olga Korbut herself. (Olympic gymnast 1972, chaps. Terribly famous at the time). Neither those for whom perfecting snappy gybes and pelvic thrust wire to wire tacks in a force 6 is but second nature. Nor those for whom their MUSTO Skiff is but an extension of their limbs.

I address those who like me have just started out, or who are thinking of doing so. Or, more especially those who have been humbled by their efforts so far. And maybe your Skiff lies sulking under covers in the dinghy park. Unloved, while you wonder what to do next. So maybe you are questioning the wisdom of your decision to try and conquer the MUSTO Skiff in the first place?

I am qualified to comment since I am a late arrival into the class having acquired my MUSTO Skiff in late September 2008. I could have timed this purchase a bit better really. My early efforts at Skiffing coincided with the autumn equinox. Biting Easterlies and gusting Westerlies supplanted benign Southerlies. All of which conspire to making the aspiring Skiffer look, well, rather crap, frankly.

However, sometimes you have to force the issue and I have sailed my Skiff, rain, shine, snow, frost and flu, pretty much every time I can. I have studied the excellent K16 DVD. (This is essential viewing. The presentation and production is really excellent. Inspirational stuff. Though I would caution that the sequences on wire-to-wire tacking are, as far as I can see, almost entirely theoretical and for me likely to stay that way for some time.)

A lot will depend on your previous experience on how your first steps with the Skiff go. But unless your C.V. includes serious time in a say, a RS600, or a passport occupation as a circus high wire act then the likelihood is that you have some hard yards before you. Starting in winter, when the water and sky is steel grey I have found it helps to have fellow Skiffers about you. If you do not have any locally, it would be more than a good idea to seek them out. At Chew Valley Lake SC we are blessed. Because like alcoholics you don’t realise how addicted you are until you try and give up.

So at Chew we have a self-help group, where my alcoholic’s analogy comes unglued, since we are in the business of keeping each other addicted. There is no appointed leader. (Except that in some Orwellian way Paul Clements is in charge. At least, he is swiftest to the keyboard on a Monday to post the first of usually quite high email traffic on the preceding weekend’s events). The point of this is that, such are the challenges of the MUSTO Skiff it is not always easy to maintain motivation, even despite encouragement you might receive from your peers. My particular nadir came, not after a day of unremitting capsizes, and there have been plenty, but more recently, by which time on occasions I could keep the mast over the boat for an entire force 4 race.

No, my total frustration came in the progress of a club handicap race. The wind was oscillating 20 degrees and between force 2 and 4. But the sun shone, and on paper, it was a nice day. However as a Skiffer you will rapidly come to view the breeze with the kind of electric awareness of a top-flight skier who clocks intimately the nuances of the snow crystal on the piste surface. Thus even as you read this, you will know these wind conditions mean the difference between standing on the deck and full on trapezing. And vice versa.

My final capsize of the day was characterised by a shut off in wind while on a reach (which I should have spotted but did not) and a mad scramble for the centre of the boat. I just about made it. But was rewarded in my Herculean efforts by a massive header and a capsize to windward with the mainsail pressed firmly to my face.

It may well have been amusing to watch. The drop in to windward started remorselessly and it all happened in relative slow motion at no more than quarter speed. It certainly took me a while to extricate myself. I came ashore in complete frustration and resolved never to be so stupid as to sail the thing again.
By Tuesday this did not seem such a great idea. 06:30 the following Saturday saw me at the wheel, with my Skiff behind, heading to Stokes Bay for the training day.

On arrival we were greeted by a firm Southerly reported at 20 knots straight on shore with crashing surf. Against the background of the previous weekend it was a bit inauspicious. The briefing from Russ Clark, was exemplary. And the advice from him about personal goals, was received, and only by the end of the day, fully understood.

Because, irrespective how others about you may be doing, it is vital that you focus solely on what YOU are doing and the steps YOU need to take to make progress. In other words you may come plum last in a race, indeed as I have serially, and be overtaken on the water in a club handicap race by Flying Fifteens. And while it is tempting to beat yourself up about this, don’t. You have set yourself one of the highest challenges dinghy sailing can offer. Any fool can sail a ‘lesser’ boat and look pretty smooth. So when things get messy, stay with it and don’t be hard on yourself. Pick one thing and work on it. Other reverses or areas of weakness have to be set aside and must wait.

And this is what I took away from the Stokes Bay training day. Everyone who sails the Skiff at the highest level has been through the learning process. And probably not that long ago. Plus, such is the challenge of the boat I suspect you never really stop learning. The Skiff rewards a smooth, flat, fast tack or gybe like no other. I know this because I very occasionally do such a manoeuvre and it is immensely satisfying. In a sense the Skiff is simple to sail. You do it the Skiff’s way, or not at all. But Stokes Bay was tough. I could believe it was 20 knots. And the wave pattern made downwind, a challenge. Multiple capsizes led, in my case, to serious battery drain.

But despite this I learned a lot. We were for example, counselled to dump the Cunningham and more concerningly, the kicker, totally at the top mark. In any other class in 20 knots no kicker would seem suicidal. Indeed first time I tried this, I bore away, and the boat accelerated wildly. In approved K16 style I dropped to my knees to hoist the kite. As I did so the bow speared a wave. I didn’t exactly get the chance to look, but I fancy the leech of the main went forward of the mast. At least I was in the correct position to pray, as the boat rolled to windward at a rate that would shame the Eurofighter. I think I got as far as the lowers, as I started the Lord’s Prayer. (The moral to this is, I think, don’t bear away too much! And maybe don’t dump the main totally in a breeze. Plus pick your moment to bear away. I have now practise this since. The lack of kicker makes gybing a shed load easier, as air can exit out of the top of the main, so a BIG thank you to Russ and Dan Vincent for this one).

I received the usual inquisitory email from Paul Clements the ensuing Monday morning. “How”, he demanded to know, “had it gone?” When I told him I had ‘on occasion’ capsized, a new message shortly appeared in my inbox. “Had I”, he enquired, “noticed how the effect of the waves had been to drive the hull inverted? This, I felt, deserved a response and here it is:

“Paul – By the time I eventually reached shore, utterly inelegantly amid great dumping surf, and a crashing of my luckily clapped out foils on the shingle, not before a heart stopping entanglement with the, Outer Distance Mark, I felt like Defoe’s Crusoe himself. I was all in, and fervently glad to be ashore. The journey from sixty minutes prior when I had set off in hope had been an eternity. Whilst one was able to converse with onlookers upon regaining dry land, a more reasonable response would have been to have lain on the beach for twenty-four hours to regain composure. And so, while tempting to respond in the negative; that, no, my skiff did lie obediently with the mast downwind jumping from the sea with the very slightest pressure from my weight on the centre board (from which I did not, at any point fall, smiting my chin, painfully) and to which I had but scampered (not of course putting a ding or three in the hull with my harness as I went, I must emphasise), rather, yes; now you mention it, I do recall in my dimmed mind that my boat was very swiftly indeed inverted with the top mast in the mud on each of the ten or so occasions I was at liberty to inspect Ovington’s finest hull finish at length. And that on each such occasion it required of me very considerably more effort than might reasonably be expected of any human since an Eskimo roll was a bare minimum for resumption of service. Yes, I did notice. It was by a margin, the very most tiring and hardest sailing I have ever done in my life. But I am still glad I went, and it was brilliant”.

If your experience matches mine, the Skiff will teach you where your limits are, and because you cannot, or should not, give up, how to get past them. Fellow would be Skiffers, if I can do it, so can you. Remember personal goals are what count here. Tick these off, and results will surely follow. I reckon. If your Skiff is under covers and unused, get it out and find out about yourself.

Good luck and enjoy.

Graham Cranford Smith
MUSTO Skiff 354.

Also worth a read The MUSTO Skiff Learning Curve >>>