12 October 2008
BSA: The Blow-By-Blow
Posted by admin under: Outings .
Each year our troop participates in a Sailing Symposium sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Yacht Club. That name cracks me up. It’s a valley for goodness sake. Why does it have a yacht club? I don’t care. My son gets to get a day out on the ocean under the leadership of our old Scoutmaster who has been a sailor nearly his entire life. So we hopped in the car and headed over bright and early. I dropped him off with his carpool buddies to go enjoy himself.
While my son hasn’t even tried to get the Small Boat Sailing merit badge he never passes up the opportunity to participate in this event.
The boys are split into differing groups so they can interact with Boy Scouts from other troops and locations. The entire crew is assigned to a sailboat with a skipper and a mate to watch over them. The boys go through the entire boat learning its terms and how to operate it. They take turns in different parts of the boat sailing it out and back in the marina. Finally they take the boat out past the breakwater and into the ocean.
After they are comfortable with their operation they race. All of the boats get a running start, but can’t pass the starting line until the pistol goes off. Then they race out to a buoy, turn, and beat back to the finish line against the wind (or sideways to it depending on how things are going).
Today was a beautiful day for sailing although it was a bit windy. My son took 3rd place in the race (which I take to be somewhere in the middle of the pack). After the crews bring the boats back in they have a barbecue before receiving their awards and coming back home.
It’s a full day and my son enjoyed himself, as always.
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