Thoë was the
Greek nymph of speed in sailing. What an extremely misnamed vessel.
Although this was my first sailboat and I had no basis for comparison.
This boat had to be the slowest craft to grace the waters of Wolf Lake.
But don't get me wrong I learned much and was awakened to the wonder that
is sailing.
For years and years I was a avid fisherman.
Despite the fact that I neither liked to kill or eat fish. It turns out
there is a indescribable satisfaction from just being on the water is a
tranquil kind of way. Messing around with lines and such. Taking in
the environment, weather and surroundings.
This boat was called a Wildflower. It was
sort of Styrofoam with a cover. Very buoyant and light. The nicest feature
was it had a regular sloop rig. A cute little headsail and Marconi main.
One of the really cool things was it had a symmetrical spinnaker with the
cutes little spinnaker pole you will ever see. With this "normal"
sailplan it really was a great platform to learn sailing. I remember years
later helping a friend on a 35 footer set his spinnaker for the first
time. It cracked me up. His sail bag was bigger than my sail. But all the
parts and functions were the same just scaled up a bit. (let's say 50
times) We hoisted the sail and it all came back to me. What a rush!
