MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

Sailing (continued)

I was sailing after work with a guy that also worked for American Can. He was from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a town at the southern end of Lake Winnebago. He had told me that when he was in high school he had a sailboat. We were about a mile out from shore when he asked if he could take control of the tiller and sail the boat, something he hadn't done in a long time. I was reluctant but finally agreed. As evening approaches the winds often become unpredictable going from near calm to a nice blow in a matter of seconds. I was standing on the front deck while he had the tiller and control of the main sail. An interesting thing about sailing in a small boat is that if the wind becomes too strong for one to control the boat, the best thing to do is just let go of the tiller and the mail sail. The boat will immediately right itself. A strong puff of wind came up and he lost control and the boat capsized throwing both of us into the water. Normally when a small sail boat goes over it lays on its side with the sail laying on the water. That didn’t happen, the boat went all the way over and to make matters worse the mast stuck in the mud. Here we were a mile from shore with no way to right the boat. There were a few other boats in the water so I stood on the bottom of the boat waving franticly for help. Several power boats went by before one of them finally saw us and came to our rescue. We eventually got the mast unstuck from the mud and righted the boat, which was now full of water and very unstable. I hung onto the handles at the back of the sailboat to keep from going over again as we were towed to shore. It was a harrowing experience.

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