I’ve got a BIG list of personal accomplishments that I want to do before… well… I die.  I’m sure a lot of them I’ll never do, but I want to keep these goals in front of me so that when all is said and done I can look back and be proud of what I accomplished.  Many of those accomplishments are sailing related.

Yesterday I managed to check one of those off the list: Go 20 knots (that’s about 23 mph for you landlubbers) in my Laser sailboat.  To give the landlubbers out there some perspective on what it is like to go 20 knots in a small sailboat (13 feet long), the spray from the boat was so intense it was nearly impossible to see where I was going.  I was sailing by “feel” because visually it was a complete white-out half the time.  Normally Lasers go about 5 mph… sometimes 10 when the wind is moderate.  One has to be sailing in 25-30 knot winds with the right wave conditions on a tight broad-reach to hit these kinds of speeds.  It’s like finding that perfect hill to bike down that you could go 40 mph cruising, but instead choose to pedal as fast as you can and hit 65 mph.  The whole time I was thinking to myself: man this is fun… but I’d better not wipe out because it’ll be PAINFUL.

So, for those skeptical types out there, I made sure to take a picture of my GPS “trip computer” screen (click image to get enlarged image):

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So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!  Me, flying through the water at 20.1 knots.  One item checked off the list.  Just in case you’re interested, here are some of the other sailing accomplishments I’m goaling for:

1. Race from SF to Hawaii singlehanded
2. Sail from SF to Sacramento in a single day on a dinghy
3. Bike to SF from Sacramento in a single day
4. Do #’s 2 and 3 on the same day
5. Qualify for and sail in the Laser world championships
6. Finish in the top 20 of the North American Grand Prix regatta series
7. Round Cape Horn

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 10:11 am and is filed under Catholicism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.