The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated May 18, 2006
Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, from the air
How did it happen that two landlubber computer programmers, on contract in the far corners of the world, decided to exchange their perfectly good if somewhat hectic lifestyles for the uncertainties and trials of bluewater cruising?
This is the tale of the how. The why you can figure out for yourselves.
Bluewater Cruising: In the Beginning
Way back before we were married, before we were even 'an item', Bronwyn and I were sitting in a bar somewhere idly discussing what it was that we wanted to do with our lives. We were both in good jobs and had, individually, achieved our childhood ambitions, including travelling around the world. We'd both left our native countries in the northern hemisphere, and were, at least temporarily, living in Australia. We had well-paid and flexible jobs that meant that we could go round the world as often as we liked, but it was somehow too easy. Life consisted of hard work and fine dining, extreme sports and luxurious living. All perfect, but it was beginning to feel a bit hollow, so what next?
Somehow or other, out of the blue, one or the other of us came up with the idea of sailing around the world. This was almost completely ridiculous, as neither of us knew how to sail. But if it was something new and difficult that we were after, then this would certainly be a challenge. After a while, the conversation bogged down in our complete lack of knowledge or experience of things nautical, and we ordered some more beer and turned our attention to other topics.
The next day, unbeknownst to Bronwyn, I contacted my old mate David, who had been sailing small boats since we were boys, and asked his opinion on the practicality of buying a yacht and sailing around the world. Bear in mind that I hadn't the faintest idea of what a yacht cost or how long it took to cross an ocean, nothing at all.
David was stunned. As a small boy, I once crewed on his racing dinghy in the Thames, showing no aptitude whatsoever. To his credit, and after only a few stunned expostulations, David settled down and answered the questions. It turned out that I had hit pay dirt; he had once intended to go voyaging with his entire family, and had a file somewhere containing all his research, in which he evaluated types of vessel, running costs, equipment and all the multitudinous host of other things that I had, until then, no idea that I had to consider.
I added up some numbers on the back of an envelope and emailed Bronwyn at her work, pointing out that it was, at least financially, feasible.
Things moved on. Bronwyn thought about my crazy plan and suggested that, in actual fact, she would consider sailing around the world with me. One thought evidently led to another and, some time later but back in that same bar where the crazy idea had started (for the record: The Phoenix, Canberra), she got down on her knees in the spilled beer and cigarette butts and proposed marriage.
Distinguishing The Pointy End From The Flat End
While planning the wedding, we looked into the little matter of learning to sail. Canberra, where we were living, is capital of a landlocked desert state several hours from the nearest coastline. The only water is in the artificial lake in the centre of the city. This happens to be the home of the Canberra Yacht Club where, for a small fee, you can hire a dinghy or even enter your own (necessarily small - the lake is not very deep!) trailer yacht on the weekly twilight race. There is also a sailing school, which teaches you how to handle a dinghy. It turned out that, in a previous life, Bronwyn had done a little dinghy-racing in Lasers and had, in fact, the previous year taken a refresher dinghy-sailing course at the Canberra Yacht Club. She had a word with Matt, who runs the course, and suddenly I was enrolled.
The course took us from 'this is a mast, this is a sail', through rigging a dinghy, and off onto the water. Over the weeks of the course there was, in fact, very little wind, so we spent quite a lot of time circling the Captain Cook Memorial Fountain which is an enormous man-made geyser and tourist attraction that fires up at regular intervals, launching an enormous spout high in the air above the city. As the water flies up and down, it generates an outward-blowing wind, such that it is possible to sail round and round it, and tack and gybe, and generally practice unless you get too far away, in which case you need to be towed back into the centre again.
The closer you get to the actual fountain, the stronger the wind, and when it was my turn to helm I kept on pushing the limit until I got so close that the water was pouring into the cockpit and onto my unfortunate crew. On one occasion, I got so close that I got caught in the suction of the underwater feeder pipes and, thus, became the first person in history to actually crash into Australia's premier national monument.
Curiously, that particular crew never sailed with me again. However, I did in fact receive my certificate of competency and, when Bronwyn and I tentatively entered some twilight races, we recorded first a dismal last (which in our defence was down to a misunderstanding of the rules; in our class, we only needed to complete two circuits instead of the three that we actually did), and then, incredibly, a first in our class. Much of the credit for this goes to the realisation that the boat went much faster when Bronwyn was at the helm and I was the crew, and also perhaps to our habit of carefully discussing each manoeuvre before attempting it, so that we both knew exactly what was going to happen and why. (To get ahead of myself, this is something that we still do and it seems to me that there would be a lot more happy sailing couples out there if there was less shouting and more discussion.)
Three Ketches on Lake Burley
