Sitting at my desk on this mid-August weekday morning; my mind wanders and my eyes drift, landing on one of our handsome pond yachts here in the gallery and I allow myself a moment of repose and reflection.
Growing up in Connecticut, my family used to take a vacation every summer to the beach in Milford. We would rent a big old seasonal house on Silver Sands Beach.
It was there that I fell in love with sailing. My oldest brother loved to sail and had a number of different boats over the years.He taught me to sail on a Sunfish just one sail, a rudder and a centerboard. It fascinated me that with just those basic things along with the wind and the water, I could ride along the Long Island Sound for hours.
It was magical!
When I moved to San Francisco, I could not wait to get out on the Bay. It took a couple of years before I met some sailing folks and began my love affair with sailing on the Bay. The boats were a lot bigger and more complex than that first Sunfish back in the 1970’s but the feeling of freedom, of connection to the elements and the exhilaration of chasing the wind across the water was still the same.
When you are sailing, there are so many things to watch out for. How are the sails set? Where is the wind? What is the current doing? All of the stresses of life and work seem to fade so that you can focus on this one task. It is both energizing and calming and at the end you are physically drained and mentally calm. It is my happy place.
I always have a couple of pond yachts in the gallery. Part of the reason is that they are handsome and make great accent pieces in a room. The other part is because at different times throughout the day, I look up from my computer at them and think about being at the helm coming up into the wind with the Golden Gate in front of me the boat is heeling bit with some spray from the waves hitting my face and I smile.
height: 51 in. 129.5 cm., width: 52 in. 132 cm., depth: 8 in. 20 cm.
height: 96 in. 244 cm., width: 89 in. 226 cm., depth: 15 in. 38 cm.
^jg/jh