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....