Mr. Paul's Laser

Brooke Kelley (she/her)

Editorial Team Member

I love everything about sailing. I love it when the wind whips my hair towards my face, when it’s January in Rhode Island and my fingers get numb from the cold, and when salt water gets in my eyes during the first leg of a race, exactly when my vision is most important. If you told me two years ago that I would be committed to college for sailing, I would think you were kidding. I had never been in a sailboat before then, and really only been on motorboats a handful of times.

When my school announced they had an informational meeting for the sailing team, I was intrigued. I am always looking to try new things, and I decided sailing sounded exciting. The first practice I attended was also the first time I had sailed, and I fell in love with it immediately. One of my school’s little boats- barely 13 feet long from stern to bow, holding no more than two people became my favorite place in the world.

Fast forward two competitive school seasons and one summer season, today I now sail once a week in a single-person boat off the Port of Providence. An older man I met at a regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, offered me the chance to use his Laser boat, a small single-person racing sailboat, every Sunday morning. Now, it has become a winter ritual during my off-season when I have no team to compete with, from October to March. As long as the water isn’t frozen, I will be out there on the water, creating my own course of arbitrary markers of floating logs or assumed distance from the shore, of where to turn, and sailing back and forth for hours.

Regardless of how uncomfortable my physical body feels, my mind feels at equilibrium, being able to balance what’s going on with the water, the tide, the wind, the temperature, sail angles, and really everything, yet compartmentalize the world off the water. Without music or company, I can reflect during this time of solidarity. Sometimes I see another sailor and stir up conversation consisting of sharing spots of “lulls” and “good wind,” two terms I quickly picked up on in the language of sailing. I sail by houses wondering if they recognize me, wave to the commodore inside Mr Paul’s boathouse, who makes sure I’m safe in the unpredictable conditions, and sometimes just sit there in the middle of the boat, trying to keep it as stable as possible, listening to the clap of the sails as they luff in the wind, and just admire the environment. I try to thank the world around me for giving me access to the ocean by collecting pieces of trash I come across (one time I took out a whole propane tank from the ocean after New Year’s Eve!). If you are allowed to try something as foreign sailing was to me, just try it. It may become your new sanctuary, just as mine became Mr. Paul’s Laser boat.