Sailing yogis
Sailing a tall ship is hard work. Well, it’s a lot of lounging on deck, punctuated by frantic outbursts of adrenaline-pumping, body-straining effort. I discovered this shortly after the Mist of Avalon left Halifax.
Men were shouting, booms were banging and everywhere, ropes were being hauled up and down to get the sails pointing in the right direction. I had no idea what I was doing: when someone yelled at me to pull a rope, I pulled a rope. When I was yelled at to let it go, I let it go.
I also discovered a leisurely life pressing buttons on a keyboard does not well prepare you for the vicious work of crewing a tall ship. My silken writer’s hands were soon red with blood.
Then, it was over. The wind picked up, puffed out the sails, and we floated along the ocean.
So, given the beating your body takes, I guess tall ship yoga makes perfect sense.
“Heathens to the back, yogis to the front,” is the cry that summons the class. As the boat lifts and falls on the breathing of the ocean, the sailing yogis rise in beautiful cobra poses. Dolphins, porpoises and whales play alongside us, but the sailing yogis are undistracted.
As the mid-day sun blazes above, the sailing yogis rise to salute it, elegantly twisting and turning as the ship lurches across the Atlantic.
Sandy, a big, brawny longshoreman of a man, is the chief yogi. He tells me it started when the skipper’s blacksmith recommended onboard yoga to deal with the aches and pains of a sailor’s life.
“I’ve been doing yoga off and on for forty years, so I knew some of the moves, so I would lead,” he explains. “The balancing poses are particularly challenging on a rolling deck,” he admits, “but it keeps me limber and loose and ready for duty.”
Others have tailored the sessions to the needs of the sea. It’s also spreading the other way: the skipper, George Mainguy, invented a yoga move to help the crew haul on the ropes.
“When we’re heaving on the halyards, we use our knees and our body weight and we breath at the same time. We’re incorporating it into our sailing routine,” Sandy says.
I’m in the mood to explore. I ask him if he’s ever been up the rigging. “These feet have never touched that rope,” he assures me, pointing to the flimsy ladder.
I’ve seen others do it: how scary can it be?
Twenty metres up, I find out exactly how scary it can be. My knees start shaking and my hands are trembling and I’m pretty sure it’s not just the swaying ropes. I start wondering at what height falling onto water feels like falling onto deck, and decide I don’t want to find out. I wobble my way back down, taking time to enjoy the spectacular view.
We’re sailing around Cape Breton on this real lighthouse route. Glace Bay clings to the cliffs as though it’s afraid to step in the water. A few hours ago, I spotted a familiar face zipping past: Theodore Too, also on his way to Sydney.
The captain decides it’s a fine day for sailing, so we’re going to sail right into Sydney harbour. Other tall ships lower their sails and turn on the engines, but we’re sticking with nature. It’s an immense undertaking. The vast ship cruises hard for the shore, looking like it’s about to beach itself, but at the last minute we work furiously to reverse the sails and she turns on a very big dime, racing for the opposite coast. We wait once more for the captain’s command, hands ready on the halyards, and work like men possessed to reverse course again.
It takes three hours of tacking, but as darkness falls, we slide majestically up to the giant fiddle and fire our cannon in greeting. The shore is deep with cheering people and fireworks fill the sky.
At the start of the trip, bushy-bearded Tom told me about this: “Now I know what it feels like to be a pretty girl,” he said of crewing an attention-grabbing tall ship.
As the Mist of Avalon gently docks, I know exactly what he means.
First published in the Chronicle-Herald Aug. 15 2009