Sailing is a part of Sapper training. Among other things, it calls for a certain skill to find the direction of the wind, by observing a thin string ( dhaga ) tied at one end, streaming in the wind — a skill which failed me.
This tale relates to 1967 when I was on a training course at the College of Military Engineering in Poona, now Pune. In the sailing competitions, each course fielded three Enterprise class boats in the races. We had three good sailors who had earlier led our sailing team to victory.
However, for one race, one of them was ill and could not sail. A boat dropping out would mean disqualification of the team, and so our course-conclave scraped the bottom of the barrel and found me!
I was aghast, because the Enterprise boats were more delicately balanced than the learners’ Wagtail boats, and I already had the distinction of ditching a supposedly un-ditchable Wagtail boat. I refused. But I was “ordered” to helm a boat, and warned of getting ducked in the river if I sullied our reputation by ditching it and disqualifying the team.
On the day of the race, I prayed for gentle winds, and entered the boat with trepidation.
When the start gun went off at the announced time, the sailors, consulting their wrist watches, had manoeuvred their boats to be just short of the start line.
I was having enough difficulty catching the wind in my sails and avoiding collision with other boats, so when the start gun was fired, I was pointing the wrong way.
By the time I had turned about and joined the race, other boats were over 50 metres ahead, and they kept increasing the lead since I was concentrating more on staying afloat than on competing for a position.
When I was reaching the buoy at the turnaround point, the other boats were well on the home run. It was soon after that I noticed that the next race had started, because boats were sailing on the outward run. I had got myself mixed up in the next race!
When I was approaching the finish line at the Sailing Clubhouse, a boat was about 20 metres behind and gaining, and I heard cheering and clapping from the spectators.
When I crossed the finish line, the Clubhouse gong announcing the winner was struck amid more cheering. The actual winner (of the next race) finished just after me, and received applause for the runner-up.
Relieved that I had finished the race, my course-mates were rolling with laughter at my having confused the officials by “winning” the next race.
They came up to me as I climbed out of my boat onto the jetty, picked me up, carried me like they would carry a winner ... and ducked me in the river!
sg9kere@live.com
