Bay CrossingsJournal

Teaching Willi

By Bill Coolidge

Her soft round face, hawk sharp brown eyes stare past the trimmed tan bark sails, past the bow anchor, out into the invisible universe of wind and tide, the temporary sketching of cumulous clouds, a white frontal draped over blue sky, building to the north, blocked by the onshore southwest wind. Two dolphins spurt by, heading west toward the inlet, getting ready for the incoming tide.

This is Willi's first time at the tiller. Our sharpie yawl sneaks out of the channel between past Lennoxville Point and Bird Island amidst the shoal swirling waters where Taylor's Creek meets the North River. Our twenty-four-foot vessel slides north then south, impervious to wind, the current reigns. The buoys lean forward, with the last vestiges of the outgoing tide. Willi intuitively points the sailboat southeast bucking the rebellious current, her eye on the red buoy, the wavelets created by shallow bottom, wind, and current colliding. I wait for the familiar sound, "slew, slew, slew," of the centerboard hitting muck and oysters, then an abrupt stop amidst wind and current. Grounded. But not today, not with Willi at the helm. We sail out toward Middle Sound. I scan the green marker #56 for the signs of the osprey nest, the fledgling, and its parents. Vacant.

"Prepare to come about!" Willi is standing, looking over the starboard side, shoaling, too close to Bird Island. The sails flutter as Willi drives the tiller to the right, the boom passes over and we head toward Harkers Island.

My dad gave me a used Sailfish when I was 12. It was a flat, wooden board, 13 feet long with a white sail. "Figure it out, I'm not much of a sailer," he told me. My older brothers preferred water skiing and power boats. I taught myself how to sail by capsizing, getting stuck behind an island, asking for a tow home. I learned the importance of a triangle course. Go out against the wind, come about on a beam reach and then return home, downwind.

Since then I have taught children and adults how to sail on lakes, bays, and oceans, using the triangular course. But I have never taught anyone who handles the sails, sniffs the wind, and moves the tiller with such delicacy as Willi.

"McCabe, the bottom is changing from murky brown to light sand, get ready to come about!" Sailing in coastal North Carolina is one of constant vigilance because storms and currents move tons of bottom sand and silt overnight. Channel markers are hopelessly out-of-date and misleading. Before I ready the genoa, Willi has already turned the bow back to the south.

"You didn't say 'hard-a-lee," I tease, as I pull up the centerboard, our bow pointed at Shackleford Banks in the far distance. We steam by the next marker and we come about again, hoping for deeper waters. Off to the right, fisherman with waders pull a long net, hoping for a mess of croaker to appear out of the swirling water. We pass some crab pots, then white stakes. "Coming about!" Willi yells, knowing these markers are leading us back into shallow water.

With a red bill cap on, gray sweat pants rolled up to her knees, black Keds, and a white t-shirt, she hardly looks the sailer type as she pushes the tiller to the right. We go with the tide giving up on finding a path through the narrow pass of Harkers Island and Middle Sound.

When we return to Taylor's Creek, the tide is going against us and I start the outboard. At dusk, the wind dies and few birds are flying.

"Willi, want a break? I'll be glad to take the tiller?"

Willi shakes her head as if I am a mosquito, buzzing around, distracting her. Her gaze is straight down the creek, the bow pointed at the recycled gray navy mine sweepers now used for menhaden fishing. I walk up to the bow, enjoying the unique vantage point. Usually, I single-hand this vessel and am at the helm. Ibises are pecking about the marsh, egrets are tiptoeing in shallow water.

"You bring her into the slip. I don't understand the current. It's too strong." I motor past the dock and then turn the bow perpendicular and let the current drift us into the 12-foot-wide empty space. Willi jumps on the dock with the bow line, I put the engine into reverse. She ties an unorthodox knot but it holds and we are safely home.

We stuff the sails into bags and then practice some knot typing. She gets the "two people under a blanket" one right away. I'm dumbfounded. I like to teach, give instructions, words of advice, warning, and support, but I have been silenced most of the afternoon with this woman. I ask her what it was like being on the water, taking the tiller for the first time.