Big Breeze, No Sweat -- Armchair Sailing
From CSCWiki
One of the greatest things about Cal Sailing Club is the opportunity to get involved in elaborate projects without the slightest risk of having to open a paint can, pick up a grinder, fill out a form, or, worse yet, actually go sailing.
While the club exists to teach people to sail and help them go sailing, most members find it more exciting to speculate in detail about how the club might better accomplish purposes that often have little to do with teaching sailing or even going sailing.
If this sounds good to you, you might want to start by participating in a discussion about which boat would be best for the club. Even if you have no experience with sailboats, you can easily join in like a pro if you first warm up a little by participating in a Chevy vs Ford, girls vs boys, or Dodgers vs 49ers discussion. This will give you a feeling for the best ways to prolong discussion. No self-respecting armchair sailor would actually leave their computer to go to a bar or playground for first-hand research, but there's probably something on youtube that will be helpful.
The most arcane aspects of sailing and windsurfing technique are also a good subject for exposition at length. Even if you've never taught anyone to whistle, let alone sail or windsurf, you can probably work up a half hour's worth on the best way to do or demonstrate some particular technique (say, the beach start, or the backwards sailing man overboard) without actually going in the water or having any wind. Just remember that most sailors and windsurfers tend to use a lingo all their own, so you should too. You won't understand what they say, they won't understand what you say, but the discussion will go on nonetheless, as long as no one stops and asks for a translation. Which they won't.
But for a virtual sea cruise that will make circumnavigators look like daysailors, there's nothing like a drawn out debate on CSC rules and regulations. These seem to have been devised purely as a navigation chart for the most ambitious of armchair sailors, and offer detail more minute than a hermit crab might need to walk every square inch of every ocean's floor. It's fun to cite chapter, verse, line number, subparagraph, and item number, but it's more exciting to skip the drudgery of actually looking at the things and just go straight to the part where you sum up the case in your barrister's wig and robe. Really, there's no need to know the rule book before you say what it says or should say, no one really can remember it and few would bother to look it up. Just don't forget to snap your suspenders and shake your jowls when you address the jury.
