* Mel Hawkes had a wonderful, endearing story of her experience sailing the J/24 Australia Nationals on-board STARPAC: "When my legs had finally stopped shaking and after I had stuffed a roll in my face I headed for the bar. Not normally a drinker I am finding I am quickly making up for that in the last few days. Still in a bit of a daze, I found myself being asked how we did. I had no idea, so was very surprised to find not only had we come fourth overall, but we had been leading for a while on the first race.The whole experience has been a steep learning curve and another one I found was probably how to annoy everyone by me piping up, I had no idea where we were, I was too busy concentrating on my two little lines that were my job. The correct terms for them would be the topping and the kicker line.
I must confess to shutting my eyes at each start as it looked more like a pack of bumper cars about to attack and judging by a rather loud thud at one point I think that theory was correct.
I have an absolute respect for all skippers, especially mine, as to how they manage to pick their spots, remain calm, is a new mystery to me. I also have to re-think the theory that men can’t multi-task as our skipper, apart from helming and trimming the boat, prevented me from hanging myself on more than one occasion and hoisting up the bow girl with the pole and that’s just the parts I had my eyes open for.
My goal tomorrow is to try and look up at one point. Baby steps! I started sailing with Pacific Sailing School a few months ago after a holiday in St. Lucia and I managed to flip a Hobie Cat which I am told is pretty hard to do. A few months later I find myself racing in the J/24 Nationals way out of my comfort zone. Hank at the school reassured me that girls can be very good sailors, let’s see what our skipper has to say at the end of the week. ;)"
Thanks Mel for such a heartwarming story--- we all started sailing somewhere, sometime, someplace...some great, some not so great. ;) Persevere, have fun and God Speed!