The breeze. The water. The hot Georgia sun on my head. My whole life can be traced back to being on sail boat. Since I was a kid I grew up going to Lake Lanier with my dad, sailing the seas! I know its not really the sea but the lake feels like one especially when I was younger.

When you think of sailing, it seems like a relaxing peaceful way to escape. While that is true, when you race the sailboats it becomes a different world. Races start with a 5-minute timer, where boats shift and turn around each other, all trying to get a better starting spot on the line. After the final horn blows you start the race. The start makes or breaks your whole race. This is where my innocent childhood self learned all the curse words I know today.

After the start, the race is pretty simple. You sail up to a mark, and then back down. Depending on the wind, the number of boats, and the kind of boat, the number of times you go back and forth varies. But for the sake of story, we will say u start, go to the far mark, then to the finish (same line as the start).

I grew up racing with my dad. I remember traveling with my dad to various lakes and racing his ‘Flying Scot’. The first regatta (sailboat race) I remember was down in Birmingham Alabama. I was 7, and I had never seen the wind blow the way it was on that small lake. When sailing in heavy wind, the weight of the crew is a very important thing, so your boat does not capsize. So as you can infer, my dad and 7-year-old me did not have an easy time. I remember crying before we went out, and when we first got on the water I was so scared. My dad kept telling me to just give it a chance, and eventually I did. That regatta got me hooked on sailing, and I almost called it quits before the first race even started. Saling has given me thousands of situations like this where I had to overcome and better myself.