CASTING OFF: Nipper Memories by Carol Bieneman

CASTING OFF: Nipper Memories

CASTING OFF: Nipper Memories
Carol Bieneman
The summer I was seven I learned to sail. Not the way our children learn a sport today with lessons and adult oversight. My father’s method was more like throwing us into a gravel pit, which is how he was taught to swim and perhaps explains why he thought my sisters and I would learn to sail if he just cast us off onto the lake.
He was eager for us to sail. He and my mother had bought a cottage on Diamond Lake after the war, in 1946. At that time, life at Diamond Lake, and at the Diamond Lake Yacht Club in particular, revolved around sailing: Every Saturday and Sunday from Memorial Day until Labor Day, sometimes as many as 50 snipes and 15 c scows would assemble for races. For those of us on shore, the sailboats were a glorious sight as they jockeyed for position at the starting line or sailed the course around the island once and sometimes twice. And for the participants (I later became one)– it was a wonderful time – competitive, social, and when the wind blew, physically challenging and exhilarating.
No wonder my sociable, competitive dad wanted to be a part of all this. Or at least have his children join in the fun. When he learned during the winter of 1949 that a children’s fleet would be starting up on the lake the coming summer, he and my mother bought the requisite sailboat. It was a Nipper, a 14 foot catboat touted as“great for children to learn on.” About nine other families on the lake also purchased nippers and a fleet was formed
I don’t remember how it was decided that I would skipper this boat. I think it was by default. I have two sisters and I was the middle child. I wasn’t adventurous but I loved my dad and didn’t want to disappoint him. My older sister loved my dad, too, I am sure, but she didn’t want to sail and had no qualms about saying so. My younger sister was six. She was the designated crew.
I was terrified. I was terrified of capsizing, I think I was scared I would get hit on the head with the boom or that a stay would break and the mast would fall on us. Nevertheless, every Tuesday we sailed. My Tuesday morning routine went like this: I would open my eyes, cower under my blanket, then peek out the window to see if leaves were moving. Desperately, I wanted to see no movement whatsoever. I would pray, “Dear God, please don’t let the wind come up any more than this today.” If the leaves were waving wildly, I would pray for an electrical storm, a broken mast or maybe even a fever. No point in hoping the wind would subside before the race. It never did.
Almost always, we sailed. In drifters, in white caps, even with dark clouds overhead, off we’d go. We’d paddle our little rowboat out to the sailboat tied at a buoy just beyond our pier. We would slip the cotton sail onto the mast and boom, cast off from the buoy, sail down the shore, around the bend on down to the Yacht Club where Ernie Scheuneman –Mr. Scheneman to us -- waited for us in the “committee” boat..