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Another Reminder of Why Getting Old is Hard Work
I arranged to meet a group of relatively new Laser sailors at the club a couple of days ago. I was there to finish upgrading hardware on one of the club Lasers and then to go sailing, and they came to get some advice and support from me to get their Lasers rigged and into the water for the first sail of the season. All of us qualify for Master’s category.
As each Laser hull awoke from its Massachusetts’ winter hibernation and piece by piece received its sailing accouterment, I tried not to hover. I was finishing applying a protective coat of polish on the club Laser when I saw a vang being pinned upside down onto a mast. No need to correct that one too fast – a bit of figuring was worth a lot of intervention from me, and it got figured out and righted pretty quickly.
Then a mast was placed in its socket and the owner began figuring which end of the outhaul double block and becket went up. Even if the he got it right, he was going to discover that he hadn’t put on the sail before the mast went up. Was it better to help him develop a correct routine from the first or to use the opportunity to let him learn how to tip the boat to get the sail on and off?
I’m a professional behavioral coach. Part of my work involves making these kinds of decisions with every client. What’s important is to constantly hold the ultimate goal out there in front of a beginner – we are working toward making them self-reliant. This group of sailors was in no danger of becoming dependent on me. They were adventurous and bold.
The rigging session started off leisurely. The task was approached like a Sunday afternoon jigsaw puzzle – the pleasure was in the process of seeing the final picture emerge. By the time the mainsheets were tied off with a stopper knot at the boom block (for two boats it took a second try to get the route correct) attention was shifting to the amount of breeze stirring up the lake, and the water temperature.
The wind wasn’t particularly high, but the collected older bones of the four of us could project themselves into the water and clearly imagine the effort it would take to get up onto the board after a flip. And perhaps more telling we all knew that we would feel the effort tomorrow morning when we got up for work.
It just doesn’t seem fair that the effort is harder and the recovery is longer when you’re older. And in this case the three of them didn’t have enough experience to offset the downsides of age. Once again we would all have to face it, as a Master Laser sailor, the water is colder, the breeze is stronger and the body isn’t invincible.
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