Sunday, August 22, 2010

Photographing the Sailing Experience

Once when sailing someone mentioned how most photos are taken under circumstances that don't reflect the true nature of life out at sea. All too often they are in sunny weather with light winds, when hands search for something to do. There are, we agreed, not enough pictures of the many times when the winds blow and seas and skies are grey

So we snapped some pictures of each other as we raced for home in rather rough weather, all enclosed in full wet weather gear complete with safety harness.

But since then I've looked for pics to take that bring back memories of life on-board, such as the one above. It's the bowman's workplace on Aeolus, little spinnaker packed (rather roughly) and wired up ready for the hoist, with the larger one in the background, ready to be swapped in if called for. There is not much room, just crawling space, and packing during tacks is an interesting exercise.

Another key pic for memories is of the sails themselves. Think of all the time you spend staring upwards, looking at its shape and the tell-tales, eyes continuing up to check the windex at the top
And if you're lucky you'll have a memory a bit like this, looking back at the fleet....

4 comments:

Baydog said...

It's amazing how much time is spent looking at the sail, even when you're not racing. It's seems unthinkable to not have the sail trimmed properly at all times?!

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

Ditto your first paragraph, JP! Today we had 20+ boats racing in less than 6 knots. I must have taken 50 photos!

JP said...

Baydog: it might be a racing background thing. I went sailing last year in Greece with some friends who had a flotilla background and they didn't have the same urge to trim the sails.

I on the other hand seemed to have an invisible itch whenever looked at the badly set sails.

Doc: its no fun at 6 knots, but I guess at least it will be well documented ;)

Barista Uno said...

Hi, JP.

Blogs about sailing and sailboats are refreshing. Yours is no exception. The photos are a joy to look at and there are bits of information here and there that even a non-sailor would appreciate.

My Marine Cafe Blog deals mainly with maritime industry trends but now and then I include posts about maritime art, history, culture and even politics. Check it out when you find time, and let me know if you'd like a reciprocal link.

Happy sailing always.