Reapply after swimming, vigorous activity or capsizing

Yesterday Crash and Math Man dusted off the boats and dug all the rigging out of winter storage (and put air in the very, very, very flat tires of the double-decker trailer). Today, my merry men and I headed off to sail at a nearby state park.

Math Man was coming from his morning golf game, so the boys and I got the boats up there, off the trailer, rigged and in the water.  After all that effort the teen-aged team was hungry, so they went off to get a snack and I slathered on sunscreen and took out the Fiat Lux.

The wind was tricksy, puffing here and pooping out entirely there.  But there was a whole fleet of other Lasers out there racing, gorgeous to behold.  Nigh on inspiring.  So inspiring, I thought I'd give a series of racing tacks a fly.  So my first tack of the season, I pushed the tiller over, pulled in the main sheet and tried to come about without losing my wind.  It was a bit rough around the edges, but hey, it was the first tack of the season.

Next tack, the wind puffs as I bring the boat across the wind.  Uh-oh.  The full sail and I are now on the same side and boat begins to roll.  I scramble for the other side, but too late.  The laws of physics have no sympathy, and certainly don't wait on my necessities.  The boat was going over, and I was going in.  Splash, bang.  I'm in the water.

I haven't had to right a capsized boat in deep water in forty years, and never without backup or another person to assist.  I wonder at my age if I can do it.  I make sure I'm not fouled in any of the lines, swim to the back and hang my full weight onto the end of the center board.  Slowly, but surely, the sail comes out of the water and the boat rights itself. Whew.  OK, now to get back in without letting the boat sail away without me.

I am short.  I am so short that the extra three inches of the personal flotation device kept me from being able to reach the inside of the gunnel.  Argh. I strip off the jacket and heave it into the boat.  Bearing more than a passing resemblance to a beached whale I'm certain, I follow the jacket into the cockpit.  I gather the lines and my dignity and am once again sailing.

It's good to know I didn't have to tread water waiting to be rescued by the lake patrol.  I lost neither glasses nor hat in the mishap.  I had brought dry clothes for the end of the day.  I could put more sunscreen on (having both swum and engaged in vigorous activity). It was, as Chesterton would have it, an inconvenience rightly considered — that is to say, an adventure.  If only the bruises didn't look like they are going to be quite so spectacular...