By Jim Nichols

The wind can be frustrating. It often has an unpredictability as to its velocity and direction. One moment it seems calm and pleasant and the next it increases to what are dangerous angles and speeds. Airplane pilots pay high attention to the wind and its variabilities.

The wind on a lake merits similar awareness; the variations in speed and direction can create both joy and concern if your sailboat is small; the term “vulnerable” seems appropriate if you are a sailing novice as I was. My limited sailing experience taught me two important truths in one day. They are true for sailing and applicable for other parts of life.

My friend was not a novice and he invited me to join him on a local lake. We pulled the sailboat on a small trailer behind his pickup. He was a good teacher but had a level of confidence on the water that I had not developed. He carefully instructed me as to how he launched the boat into the water and set the sail in its original position.

As seems to happen often near bodies of water, the wind was whipping in various directions even on the shore; it was even stronger as he pushed us out on the water. With lifejackets on, we were ready for an adventure.

His next major teaching activity was to show how we could maneuver the boat so that we were going against the prevailing wind. It is not too hard to understand how a sailboat could move with the wind behind it; the wind simply fills the sail, and the boat moves with the wind. However, moving against the wind involved moving the sail to one side to catch the wind in such a way that the boat went somewhat forward, but at an angle. He then quickly switched the sail position so that it caught the wind and moved forward but at a different angle. If you Google this activity, you will get a complicated explanation with strange words, but the one term I knew and that he was demonstrating was “tacking.” We were tacking into the wind and moving in a zigzag fashion generally against the wind as we went back and forth sideways a bit. In other words, we were moving the direction we intended to go, but accomplished that by making slight sideways alterations and detours. 

In retrospect, this is the way you and I often accomplish most tasks. It might be nice to proceed directly to the end of the requirement, but that seldom is an option. Instead, we have learned that we can often break the task into smaller pieces that, although they do not reach the goal, head in the general right direction. We zigzag toward the end, but we get there.

My friend introduced me to the center board, and he explained how important it was to the stability of the boat. It was adjustable and changed the contour of the underside. It was required to move in directions other than downwind. He explained that, were we to lose the center board, we would be unable to control the boat.

Have I mentioned how large this lake was? It was the major water supply reservoir for our medium-sized city.

My friend removed his life jacket for some reason. Simultaneous to that, a large wave struck us and capsized the boat, sending the center board and us flying. I grabbed the now loose life jacket as I fell. He was able to climb back into the boat, but by now it was quickly moving away from me. Without the center board, he had no boat control and the distance between us rapidly increased. I clearly remember him yelling, “Can you swim to the shore?” I had no choice. I did, however, have two life jackets.

I could swim, but the distance to shore was insurmountable. I found that I could swim for a while and then float and rest, trusting the life jackets. This swim/trust pattern eventually took me to shore.

It is obvious that I have now seen another fact. My measly swimming ability was sufficient because I was being held up. As another friend says, “Why, that’s almost Bible.”

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain