Physics With Captain Frickin' Ahab Heart - Dreamboat Annie I hate sailing! My Dad bought a 14 foot sail boat when I was in my pre-teen years. He joined a yacht club and we HAD to race twice a week. Don't get me wrong now, sailing is a wonderful pastime and an extremely tactical sport. However, it is probably more fun when you are not sailing with Captain Frickin' Ahab! My Dad would unintentionally abuse his racing crew in almost every race. I new nothing about sailing when I started this phase of my life. I would sit there awaiting my father's commands and when he felt it was time he would scream "COMING ABOUT!" and I would lunge around the boat and fumble with the jib nervously until I felt confident it was trimmed to perfection then I would hear... TRIM THE JIB. There was no glory, we always came in last and frankly the abuse left me with a bad taste in my mouth for sailing, period. This stuff went on for years and I began to find clever ways to avoid these evenings. Until one year my Dad decided it would be wonderful fun to put the boat on a trailer and take it East for our summer vacation. You can imagine how wonderful I felt about this. Well in retrospect I can really understand my Dad's desire to do this. He would be able to sail with his brother and his Dad and they all seemed to love this sailing gig. It was about a six hundred mile drive and it took us about 10 hours under normal circumstances. That is a long drive. Well it's seems its a 15 hour drive when you are towing a stupid 14 foot sail boat on a trailer behind a totally under powered car. THAT is a long drive! After a few days on vacation we could see Dad getting antsy about going sailing. My Mom - who suffered from the same racing abuse and generally felt the same way I did about sailing with Captain Frickin' Ahab - was hiding behind furniture and slipping out when ever the topic came around. Finally Dad spoke with his brother Dick and agreed that they would take my Grandfather out on the river and enjoy a FULL DAY of sailing pleasure! I was so relieved as there was a complete absence of my name in the planning of this event. As they were packing the car my Dad called me and suddenly I was involved. There was no way out... I was going sailing, like it or not. We drove out to Belisle Bay on the St. John river (New Brunswick, Canada) and launched the boat. It was a perfect day for sailing there was absolutely NO wind. The four of us sat there in the boat staring at one another and I guess I was the most vocal. I must have either said something right or maybe I just drove the three of them crazy with my complaining. They finally dropped me off on an inflatable raft that was sitting on a floating dock. My Dad gave me so much attitude when I was getting out of the boat it really ticked me off. Like I was a total moron at 12 years old for not wanting to spend the day waiting for wind and talking about how life was 45 years ago! I watched bitterly as they drifted off. I floated around on this raft in the windless dead calm waters and realized what an incredibly dull day I was in for. I then looked up at the boat in the distance and muttered "ya fucking jerk". Well at least it was sunny. I swam a bit and paddled around in the raft for quite a while until I saw a spec on the horizon. I thought to myself that the three of them must be coming in for a bite to eat as it was getting close to lunch. I sat there silently in the raft waiting patiently. Finally they were about 50 feet away. I could hear the hull of the boat gently cutting the water and a little quiet chatter from the three of them. They weren't stopping, the boat slipped up beside me and as they went by my Dad reached out with his arm and said "That is the LAST time you talk to me like that" slapping me briskly on the side of the head in mid sentence. I clutched my head for a few moments and asked myself "why did he do that?" Then I remembered what I had called him almost 45 minutes prior. How the hell did he hear that? I had barely whispered it. He did accept my apology for humiliating him in front of his Dad and his brother. I look back on this and write this "Captain Frickin' Ahab like" behavior off to my Dad's competitive spirit and his rock solid stubbornness. Fortunately I'm not like that at all (according to me!). I'm sure someday I will wish I could go sailing with my Dad again but for today I will stick to arguing with him over whether or not computers are here to stay and listening to him rave about potatoes. Ya gotta love the guy!