Just For Fun

I've got a confession to make. My column was late this week. You see, in the high pressure world of Nantucket journalism, we columnists live and die by deadlines. I'm usually pretty good about meeting deadlines, occasionally skating by with a few minutes to spare, but almost always on time. My deadline for this column is usually Friday at noon. But this week, I was forced to ask for an extension. And my dear editor was kind enough to grant it to me. She's nice like that.

The reason for my request wasn't because I was slacking off on my duties or procrastinating or whatever else. Well, maybe I was procrastinating a little, but that's not the main reason. The main reason my column was late this week was because I was sailing.

And yeah, I know, that sounds bad. Kind of like I was procrastinating by sailing. But seriously. It wasn't like that. You see, kids, Nantucket Race Week was pretty much my life this past week, as I was the person in charge of scoring for the whole week. And on top of that, I was also trying to do a little sailing while I was at it. And since Nantucket Race Week raises money for Nantucket Community Sailing, I figure I'm doing my part to help out a worthy local cause and having a little fun while I'm at it.

So one of the races I was involved with as both a participant and a score keeper was the PHRF series. PHRF is the abbreviation for Performance Handicap Racing Formula, and it's kind of like a golf handicap. All the boats in the PHRF regatta have a rating - a handicap, if you will - that is determined by a certification process that takes into account all sorts of different elements of each individual boat. The goal is to create a system whereby boats of different sizes and speeds can race against one another on a more-or-less equal playing field.

So I'm out there on Zingara with Chris Magee. One thing that is typical of the average sailboat race is that there's usually a lot of yelling right before the start and, oftentimes, at mark roundings. The crew of one boat is yelling at another that they're doing something wrong, and the crew on that boat is yelling back. It's kind of like Thanksgiving dinner on the water, but I digress. So people are yelling back and forth, calling each other all sorts of names, suggesting warm locations where others might consider spending the rest of eternity, that sort of thing.

But the PHRF people are different. They're relatively quiet. They're friendly to one another. They're actually polite to their competition. It's mind-blowing. Case in point, we were coming in to a mark rounding and I slyly positioned myself on the stern of the boat to see if there was going to be what we affectionately refer to as "a situation" with an approaching competitor. But before I had the chance to yell at him that he had no room because he hadn't established an overlap, he looks over at me and quite calmly says it's too bad he didn't get an overlap because now he would have to let us go in front of him. Then he laughed about it. Then we all kind of lobbed friendly jokes back and forth for a couple of minutes and then went about sailing again. It was bizarre.

And then, as it so often does at times like these, it hit me. These people, this odd race of humans we call PHRF racers, had something to teach yours truly. They were competing with one another to be sure, but at their core, these guys were just out there to have fun. And that's what it's all about. Especially when you're sailing. Or fishing.

Segues might just be the most fun of all the expository devices I know of. Well, segues and dramatic irony. But that's a whole other ball of wax.

Friends and neighbors, it's true. So many of us get caught up in our world of bigger and better and faster and whatever elser that we forget to have fun. And to tell you the truth, I'm just about as guilty of it as the next guy. When I was a kid, I could spend hours sitting at the town pier with a squid, a hook and a line. Nowadays, though, it seems like there are those amongst us who aren't happy unless they're twenty miles offshore pulling in fish you read about in Hemingway novels.

For many of us, we've lost the love of the basic. We've gotten too technologically advanced or too old or too cool to sit on a dock and just drop a line to see what we can catch. I learned more marine biology in a summer of fishing on that dock than I did during sophomore year in high school. And what's more, it was fun. I had a good time doing it.

Alan Newhouse, the man whose vision became Nantucket Community Sailing, loved the simple things in life. He loved his Rainbow, he loved his Indian. They aren't the fastest boats around and God only knows they aren't the most comfortable vessels to sail. But Alan loved them just the same. And that philosophy exists today at Community Sailing. It's all about getting kids (and adults, for that matter) out on the water and teaching them how to have fun while sailing.

I, for one, sometimes find it easy to forget that first and foremost I'm on the water to have fun. I can be out on the water on a bluebird kind of day when the sky is gorgeous and the temperature is perfect and I don't have a care in the world except for the fact that I'm not catching fish. It's those days I forget that I'm out there to have fun. Yeah, catching is more fun than getting skunked, but there's still so much enjoyment to be had from the pursuit itself.

So take a page from the PHRF sailor's playbook and go out there and just have fun.

Tight lines. I