Basic Keelboat skipper certification
The Kona Sailing Club is the first US Sailing Basic Keelboat skipper certification school in Hawaii, with Commodore Joe Scarola being an approved instructor with the nationally-recognized sailing organization. Kick-starting the skipper training program, long-time sailor and club member Cary Evarts took the written and practical exam in February…
By KAREN EARNSHAW
Tucked into the corner of Wind Fire’s cockpit, clipboard and pen in hand, Joe Scarola said: “Just pretend I’m not here.”
An hour earlier, we had trundled up to the Kona Sailing Club, which is tucked away to one side of the Honokohau small boat harbor, with the goal of Cary becoming a certified skipper so we can charter a club yacht. A two-page “check-off list” had been emailed; Cary was feeling confident.
Backed into the gateway, a familiar musician was hauling gear out of the back of his van in preparation for regular band practice; the twitchy cat was hopeful we were sharing and caring humans; and Commodore Joe sat at one of the picnic benches, his laptop flipped open and surrounded by small stacks of papers.
“Casey can’t make it,” Joe said. “He is super disappointed, but an emergency came up at work … So, shall we get started?”
The certification is a fully-fledged and legitimate test courtesy of the United States Sailing Association, a.k.a. US Sailing: The National Governing Body for the Sport of Sailing* and first up was the written section. Black pen poised, to Cary’s left were the 80 questions and a range of graphics showing different sailing “situations” … to the right, the two pages of multiple-choice options with small blank circles to be dutifully filled in.
“I’m off to get some sandwiches for lunch, back soon. Good luck, Cary. And, Joe, seeing as we’re the first to take the test, perhaps we should time how long this takes for later use?”
Forty minutes later, Joe was scrolling through Cary’s effort, occasionally dabbing a circle with a fat red Sharpie.
“How many errors are allowed?” Joe: “Eight.”
Cary had five. Yippee! Onwards to the ocean challenge.
With the entire test focused first and foremost on safety afloat, we began. Exercise No. 1: Hank on the jib and tie down with a bungee cord; remove boom cover; do a basic check of the rigging, lines, safety equipment and electronics, etc. Exercise No. 2: Using Joe’s handy-dandy truck, navigate the 20-foot red Newport sloop through some tight turns to the boat ramp and slide it into the water.
The pretense that Joe was “not here” was lifted to go through the various maneuvers to be undertaken. “You have to do a Figure-8, a Quick Stop, demonstrate how to reef sails…” all to make sure Cary could successfully retrieve a human from the sloshing waves.
Each task required a different equation of direction of the sails, the tiller, and the boom plus the ability for the crew to deal with each ingredient. In our case this included at least one snafu, with a jib line becoming “wrapped” on the starboard winch.
Taking the role of first mate, I assisted in tacking and jibing by whipping the small red lines on and off the winches and tugging on them in a hopefully useful fashion (and, yes, the “wrap” was my error for not fully releasing the line).
Two Siamese fenders, joined at the purlings by a single lanyard and named Victor and George, posed as the humans. And after being shoved overboard by the Commodore they did a great job of bobbing along, with lots of encouragement coming from the crew: “You’ll be fine, we’ll be there in just a minute to save you.”
Cary niftily hauled the “boys” on board and Joe added a few extra points onto the tally on the clipboard.
There is a large green “can” moored off the entrance to Honokohau harbor, while on a high part of the shoreline to port there is a complementary green plate on a post, and in the center a white “lead” indicator.
Also featured in the center of the channel was the backside of a set of big rollers clearly frothing at the mouth as they rolled toward the marina. “They usually come in sets of eight,” Joe mentioned as he looked ahead to the calm waters, back at the oncoming waves, and then at Cary. Who appeared to be doing fine.
Cary turned up the throttle, the waves flattened out into a milky foam and we were through. Home again, home again.
Three power boats with happy fishermen aboard trailed Wind Fire to the ramp, where the three of us secured the boat just four hours after arriving at the Kona Sailing Club.
Joe turned to me: “Perhaps we should add the word SKIPPER to the KSC membership cards for the people who pass the test?”
Yes, that would be a great idea.
Anyone interested in finding out more about the Kona Sailing Club’s Basic Keelboat skipper program should email commodore@konasailingclub.org
*US Sailing – The National Governing Body For the Sport of Sailing
The association’s mission, according to its website “is to provide leadership for the sport of sailing in the United States. The organization works to achieve this mission through a wide range of programs and events. US Sailing sets the course enabling sailors to enjoy the sport for a lifetime.”