Flying or sailing? ... the roots

For me getting into sailing was not that obvious for the first sight. I was born in a pilot family, and grew up on airfields as my father's job and hobby was the same: flying. He had multiple acquaintances with flying: during weekdays he was a pilot instructor initially, but gradually got himself into competitive aerobatic flying and also started formation aerobatic flying with his colleagues. On weekends though, he was doing gliding and soon started participating in gliding championships too.

With this backdrop, is this a big surprise if from early childhood up until my age of 20, I wanted to become a pilot myself too? I stepped on that path, when I started gliding at the age of 14 and got my pilot license sooner than my driving license. In the middle of my university years I eventually I gave up my childhood ambition to become a professional pilot, but for long enough I would have imagined myself to get back to gliding well before I commit myself to anything else that is similarly time consuming activity than gliding.

The reason I started this thread of thoughts though, is because, as I discovered, that what are seemingly very different actually share a lot of similarities: flying and sailing.

During a glider training you need to go through a process, which makes you grow up quickly even if you are a kid. Simply because they have to: at the end of the day they are toying with their life.

First of all there is the physics of flying: aerodynamics. You better understand what airstream does around the wings, impact of wing profile on the lift, how do aileron, elevator and rudder work. Concept of airspeed is also critical: if you do not have enough you either do not take off or if you are already in the air, you just fall down as any objects would do. On the other hand, if you are flying too fast, forces will emerge that the structure of the airplane cannot sustain and it will fall apart...Impacts may be less dramatic around the sails of a boat, but the story is very similar. Charts on the right explain aerodynamics of a wing, but they also provide an argument why frequent sail trimming pays off.

When getting into the air, you need to get accustomed to the idea, that the airplane is the physical structure that will take care of you in the air. If you know how to handle it, it will be the device that help you to operate in an environment in which otherwise you cannot exist (several hundred meters above the ground), and it will be the "machine" that facilitate your return back to ground.

Once you digested the prior point, then it is obvious that the pilot needs to both ensure and make sure that the airplane is in airworthy condition before it takes off. This is a complex process, or rather a mindset around everything that you do: how you maintain, store, clean the aircraft, how you prepare it for take-off, how you monitor its operation when in the air, and how you review it after landing. These steps are essential, given the airplane is the asset that your life depends on. In the air you are alone, and you need to deal yourself what you took off with ... you have no chance to fix in the air what you missed on the ground. Sailing is not much different. Maybe the list of issues you can actually fix and the timeframe you have to fix them are longer before they get totally out of control.

There is the weather too. As a glider does not have an engine typically, you need to be able to read the clouds to find the essential thermals, lifts, understand weather enough to decide when to fly and when not to. Sailing is not much different either, if you want to avoid wind and sea state situations that are extremely challenging to manage.

And last but not least, there is the essential respect for nature. We are all too small and fragile compared to the vast power of nature. And both in the air or in the sea we are way out of the natural comfort zone of the human being ... without our well functioning specialised equipments we cannot manage alone in this environment. This concept needs to be digested and let well settled to approach both flying and sailing activities with much needed humility.

I was adopting to the above principles and circumstances when I was only a teenager. I was getting into sailing only as I was approaching 50, and it was a pleasant discovery for me how many things from my early life experiences are actually transferrable to sailing: mindset, skillset, some of the technical knowledge too.

Luckily, this is not the only way to get into the beautiful and exciting world of yacht sailing!