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Gravity and balance are seriously underestimated things. We take them completely for granted, not realising how vital they are, until they’re dragged out from under our feet.

Or, in my case, not so much dragged out from under my feet as tilted to an odd, hard to cope with, angle.

I’m talking about, of course, that sailing trip that I told you I was going on. I wrote about it in the paper (go read), but there are some bits I didn’t have the space to write about. Like the way the boat tilts at a 30-degree angle, which keeps changing with the wind and the waves. Then there’s the pitching movement of the boat up and down the swell. So your legs don’t quite know where to go, and just to stand straight you have to hold on tight to something. Everything is done at an angle: eating, sleeping, cooking, and peeing.

This should give you an idea of the angle the boat is always at.

The cooking range was quite an interesting thing itself, hitched at the sides but swinging free otherwise so that it would always manage to be mostly flat. There were prong-like things located above the burners to hold vessels in place. Little wooden slats on the floor right before it, so you have a place to wedge your feet in, and a handle right above to grip on to.

All the things in the boat have to be ’secured’. That is, put away under the bunks on in the little drawers or tied down with ropes. Anything that isn’t, rattles around in the inside and the boat rolls and pitches.

Another interesting thing that’s there because of the angle the sailing boat is always at is the cement and grit that’s mixed into the paint on all the open surfaces on the boat’s deck. This is done to provide a certain amount of friction, so that you don’t slip off.

Even the surface of the bench you see here is covered with the cement and grit paint.

I can vouch for the fact that this really works. I spend all my time sitting on a side of the boat (that figure in black you see on the photo at the end of the post is me), tightly wedging my legs and backside at the spot, to avoid slipping off. By the end of the day, my trackpants were completely shredded at the seat! By the end of the second day when I got back home, I felt a little bit like Saif Ali Khan in Dil Chahta Hai, who had to sit on a pillow for days after a painful truck ride.

Do read the article, and if any of you have ever been sailing, tell me what your experience was like.

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Posted by Neha Dara on Saturday, August 29, 2009 at 11:14 pm 
Filed under Travel · Tagged boat, Gravity and balance, pitching movement, sailing

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