The Scottosphere

The Head of the Charles Regatta oper­ates sev­eral redun­dant tim­ing sys­tems. A high-speed photo-finish cam­era records a stream of 1-pixel-wide images across the start­ing line, which are dis­played on the screen as a hor­i­zon­tal strip. Here, one of two very capa­ble oper­a­tors zooms in and man­u­ally selects the pixel that best rep­re­sents the lead­ing edge of each boat, which assigns it an offi­cial start time.

Yes­ter­day after lunch I ped­aled to Charlestown and locked my bike to the rail­ing that sur­rounds Pier 4. Usu­ally I am focused on not drop­ping my lock into the sea, but this time I was dis­tracted because my view of the water was blocked by an angu­lar wall of cold gray steel. At first I thought the Navy had moved the USS Cassin Young, but then I spot­ted mod­ern phased-array radars and, to my sur­prise, the flag of Nor­way. This was the hull of the impos­ing HNoMS Roald Amund­sen. Why would a 440 foot Nor­we­gian Navy frigate tie up along­side my sail­ing cen­ter? I don’t know, but there is a sand­wich shop nearby that makes a very good panini. Any­way, the sailor stand­ing guard seemed unper­turbed by the threat of a bicy­cle merely 20 feet from his war­ship, so I chalked this up as another Boston first and moved on.

Hav­ing com­pleted by Basic Keel­boat cer­ti­fi­ca­tion last week, I was anx­ious to set off on my first truly sin­gle­handed sail in Boston Har­bor. The expe­ri­ence brought me back to that weird rite of pas­sage for many 16-year-olds, dri­ving solo on the high­way for the first time. The par­al­lels are strik­ing. Sit­u­a­tional aware­ness con­sumes an ample por­tion of my atten­tion. Devel­op­ing a sub­con­scious feel for the boat’s response to var­i­ous inputs is a pri­or­ity. Peri­ods of heavy traf­fic can be stress­ful. Catch­ing gusts while sail­ing close-hauled can still make me jit­tery. And I have a strong urge to pile all my friends into the boat and go for a joyride. Some things never change.

A few things are mak­ing this expe­ri­ence great: the unshak­able con­fi­dence of the sail­ing cen­ter staff, being a quick learner, beau­ti­ful weather, and the mag­nif­i­cent view of the city from the water.