Life Sling Clinic - June 4th

GREAT class - Every year this is offered by the South Sound Sailing Society. I have been wanting to do this clinic for several years and for one reason or many, just haven't been able to.  I am really glad it worked out for this year.  There was some classroom instruction for a couple hours, then some "practice" at the dock, and then onto the water we went.  I was on Gratitude, Terri's Catalina 30, along with Judy, the instructor, Steve, the 'victim', and Marcy and her son Jacob, There was 3-4 other boats and 12-16(?) other participants also tossing and retrieving people from the water. The 'victims' were given survival suits for going into the water and with the warm sunshine, it sounded better and better to maybe have been a victim.  We each had a few challenges recovering him, but since the weather was so nice, our 'victim' sometimes seemed disappointed when we 'bothered' him and hoisted him aboard.  He said he was so relaxed floating out there in the warm sunshine, he was almost asleep...........   It was 75+ degrees and bright sunshine the entire afternoon. We had some pretty decent wind to start with but it decreased as the afternoon progressed making it tougher and tougher to sail back to the victim.   ***** Have lifesling, will rescue.  *****
Thanks for the photo Terri!  Steve, our victim in the orange "gumby" suit is getting ready to slip into the water (he really should be more careful, this was the 2nd time already today), me at the helm, and Judy, our instructor for the afternoon.