Sailing

Meanwhile, those of us who were not required to attend the all-school picnic went on the first sailing outing of the Circolo della Vela della Tuscia, off the coast of Santa Marinella /Riva di Traiano. I signed up for this course hoping to see the coast, do some sailing, and improve my concversatio skills. The course includes four lectures (at the university, in Viterbo) and four Sunday sailing trips to the coast. The people enrolled in the course are pretty much my age, some university people, some younger people. Several did this course before, but learning sailing skills is not exactly the point...

Santa Marinella is a pretty resort on the coast, not far from Rome. The marina is under a restored castle. Our boat, Aramis, was an antique of sorts, made of wood: not high performance, but pretty. These wooden boats are a big deal in Italy. No helm, just a big carved tiller.



The day was lovely and pretty warm; I even went for a short swim. But unfortunately not much wind -- we had to keep motoring most of the time.



There were five of us. Here I am with my crew mates, Bruno and Mauro. Another crew member was Teresa (around 60). Our skipper, Alberto, (around 65) is a math teacher at a high school (liceo scientifico), not far from ours. I suppose they arranged the crews by age.



I picked up a few sailing terms. It turned out bowline is called la gassa or, more precisely, la gassa d'amante -- "lover's knot." The bow is prua or prora; the stern is poppa; a point of sale is, naturally, andatura (from andare -- to go, a pretty word!); to head up is orzare, to bear off -- poggiare; a tack - virata. Trimming a rope, for some reason, cazzare. Is it from the ubiquitous cazzo (dick) or vice verso? I didn't ask, afraid to say some cazzata (stupidity).

It seemed the morning was filled with anticipation... of lunch! (See below...)