The only light was from the thin line of phosphorescence at the top of the towering waves. I thought those waves looked like monsters in the night. Bracing as these beasts crashed down around us, again and again pinned as we fought for any grip to stay aboard, we grappled with the sail to try to heave it down and replace it. But in the dark, we could only barely manage. At night, with the storm raging, it was pitch black. The clouds covered the moon and any light from shore was hundreds of miles away. We struggled forward to the bow against the wind, and when we finally made it I looked ahead. ![]() It was my job to lead the team forward and so forward we went. During the night a storm began to surge and the wind grew in strength. We tried to avoid it, but it was eventually clear we’d have to undertake the dangerous task of changing our foresail to a smaller one. One night we had left too much sail up as the sun set. It was a week of tough, upwind sailing, across leagues of sea. After my second year, we were sailing to Bermuda for a race. You have to, or else the trials you face out there would be too much. You need to look out beyond your own lifelines, to know and understand the sea. You can’t fight the ocean in a sailboat you have to work with the ocean to guide yourself where you need to go. That moment was the first revelation, the first time I could look out over the confusing seascape and see the forces driving it. Over the next few years I learned to read the surface of the water, using hints of whitecaps and signs in the lees to choose our sails and plot our path. And so, I plucked up the courage to ask the secret and the bowman pointed out over the waves. He pointed out the patterns, how the subtle ripples darkening the surface and crossing the bow gave you hints, and from those hints you could see how the wind was flowing and how we would trim our sails. I was in awe of our bowman, who knew exactly when the wind was about to pick up in a puff or die down in a lull. I had been on the team a few weeks but I didn’t understand this skill. I remember vividly the day I first saw the wind. Reading the wind, seeing it, is the first important skill to learn as a sailor. I saw the changing faces of the sea and began to understand how to react to the lead, and then to step forward and guide the ship where we needed to go. ![]() You go out and collide with the storms, the waves, and by your wits and guts come out victorious. But going out sailing every day showed that instead of a fight it was a dance. They tune the rigging and paint the sides and mend the sails and splice the lines. Given the obsession and care, I had always thought that being at sea was a violent fight with ships and men on one side and the ocean on the other, bows crashing through waves and sails bent against the oncoming wind. This is what old Navy hands and old mariners will tell you – that the first enemy is the ocean. I would learn on my next three years on the sailing team that sailing isn’t about ships, it’s about the sea. Like all boats, however, my dad’s boat had spent more time in port than out, so my several cumulative days’ worth of experience did not justify the overconfidence which drove me straight into the side of Dewey basin. I had only distinguished myself by being the one candidate who followed the directions by wearing the standard-issue boat shoe socks, and was allowed onto the team. ![]() My dad owned a sailboat so I knew how to make a sailboat go in about the right direction, and I thought I would give the sailing team a try. I did track in high school, but there was no way I was making the team at the Academy, and I was forced to shop around for alternatives. The first thing I did during my tryout for the sailing team was crash straight into the seawall. Everyone at the Naval Academy is required to be part of a sports team.
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