Dinghy Sailing at Marina del Rey

Yesterday a friend of mine and I decided to ride out to the beach. We first walked along Venice Beach, which is always entertaining and sometimes even a bit scary. We decided to go watch the sail boats and fisherman at Marina del Rey. There are always lots to see out there as well. The last time I was there I came upon a photo shoot which was not going so well. Mostly because it was quite windy as it was yesterday, and those that were helping the photographer did not seem prepared for the amount of wind and sand that they encountered. The model didn't seem that excited about it either. So I just sat back and watched them fumbled through it all as the egotistical photographer became quite annoyed.

However, on this day there were various sailboats in the harbor, then I noticed a small sailboat had capsized.


We were wondering how they were going to be able to get the boat right-side up and continue on, but they did. As we were watching all of this we noticed that there were about four other sail boats of the same small size in the harbor, but this was different from any sailing that I had ever seen. It appeared as though the passengers in the boat often shifted themselves from one side of the vessel to the other. They used their bodies in the turning of the boat and immediately shifted to the other side of the boat after the turn and leaned backwards toward the water over the side.

We then realized that if this was not done with a certain precision the boat would become unsteady and turn over. I was thinking that this was way too much work for any kind of enjoyment, but often times this is so with various sports.

Dinghy Sailing is the name of this sport and it was at times painful to watch. One young couple spent more time in the water than on the boat itself. At one point the coast guard came to help them by pulling the boat to aid in flipping it back to the right side, so this couple could continue on.



Well that they did. It was intriguing to watch but nothing that I would want to do. It looked quite difficult













Changing sides and leaning to keep the boat afloat gives one the impression of the needed dedication and skill.





I had never seen this done before, even though I have seen many sailboats in the past. I have met sailors that sailed in the Atlantic Ocean in Savannah, Ga. as well as in the Gulf while I lived in Tampa, Fl. but I had never seen dinghy sailing.