Tacking out from shore into Lake Champlain against the wind in a sailboat for the first time was a challenge, no matter how many times I had calculated vectors in physics class. The diagrams didn’t include the chop of the waves, the feeling of the spray in my face, or trying to keep my balance in a small boat while my aunt and uncle did most of the work.

There’s some amazing physics going on in a sailboat: between the sail, the rudder and the keel, the forces can work such that a boat can actually go faster into the wind than it can with the wind behind it. It’s hard enough to understand when you’re looking at math and arrows; I don’t have the skills to do it with just words. Math and physics are comforts for a mind like mine when I’m experiencing something new.I don’t have any experience in sailboats other than this story, if you don’t count tours of Old Ironsides or the Halfmoon. Despite a lot of time in and on and around water, it’s all been motorized or self paddled. The wind isn’t usually such a collaborator in deciding speed and direction. 

My brother attended the Naval Academy which had its own flotilla of sailboats. They trained him to sail before he started academic classes, the same way they trained him to march and salute. As an aside, one family reunion, my uncle rented a waterskiing boat but didn’t want to drive all day. Like any good uncle, he double-checked if Jim knew how to drive a boat. Jim’s somewhat bruised ego response was to remind my uncle that he had steered naval vessels.

Uncle Bill and Peggy took me out in that ten-foot sunfish type boat a few years back.  While I viscerally recall the “excitement“ and “trepidation“ of the trip out of the bay, returning back to shore with the wind behind us was really a sublime and eye-opening experience. The boat and the wind and waves all move together  at exactly the same speed, so everything glides, still and silent. When you’re far enough out from sure there are no real landmarks that parallax so you move so much more quickly than you perceive. Something very similar happens sometimes when I am on a bike ride, and the wind is following.  I feel so powerful, skilled, and efficient. 

That’s one way I think about privilege. Everything lines up behind me, with no resistance or spray back in my face. I get to move straight towards safety, and I feel stronger than am. The route feels smooth, and I never even noticed the wind at my back.