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Caught in a Williwaw

© Anne Schwab

Have you ever felt the wind speed by your head as you fly across the water, sails out halfway, the wind pulling them tight, the sideboard humming as you cross the lake on a broad reach?

It's that humming that's the capper. The noise of the sideboard skimming across the water as the wind pushes against the sails, spurting the boat forward, riding parallel with the waves, praying and hoping that one doesn't lift you up and then bury you, but giddy in the excitement that it might.

It was this wind, a wind that promised this kind of a ride that lured my crew Carol and I out on to the lake one sunny Saturday morning, many years ago.

It was a great breeze, heavy and steady and warm, and we were chomping at the bit to get going.

"Put on your lifejackets girls!" My mother called from the doorway, but we just smiled at each other and nodded back at her.

We knew we weren't about to do that. How uncool can you be, anway?

We rigged the boat in a hurry, both of us afraid she might come out and make us put on those unwieldy things while she was watching, and then we set out.

It was downwind the first part of the way to the race course, and we threw the whisker pole up, and sat back to hydroplane across the whipping waves.

Hanging on to the tiller for dear life, I steered through the waves, and we both shrieked at the wind slapping our faces.

I remember a whisper of doubt crossing my mind as we raced pell-mell across the lake that morning: where was everybody? From the looks of it, we had the lake to ourselves, and it was only twenty minutes to go until race time.

But I pushed that annoying whisper aside, instructed Carol to take down the whisker pole, tightened the sheets, and headed up to a reach.

We were really screaming now. All of us, the boat, Carol and I, screaming across the lake. I don't remember ever going that fast before in an M16, and I don't think I've gone that fast since.

Carol looked at me and I at her, and we nodded at the same time.

It was lifejacket time.

Maybe Mom had been right.

I headed up into the wind so we could slow down enough to grab out our lifejackets and get them on before I had to fight with the heavy tiller some more.

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