Shadow Ready for Sailing !
This story is about ‘Shadow’, my adopted 7 year old Lab and our Sea-Dog. In many ways he is just like me; he loves water, and he thinks he is younger than he really is, boy, does he have energy, he loves good company, and doesn’t mind if someone throws him a bone once in a while..
Last year I wanted to show a buddy what a nice view we have towards Buffalo from the water, and brought Shadow along. The boat for our sail was a Pearson 26, which is a really great boat. Lots of space in the interior, and it moves and feels like a big boat, in a small size.
It was a perfect evening, we brought our swim-trunks along, and after we had anchored the boat near the Southern Lighthouse, we both jumped in. To swim to the shoreline was easy, and during our swim we tried to get Shadow to jump in with us. He looked long and hard, but decided to stay on the boat. My guess is he thought it was a wee bit too high, not knowing what could happen, first timer as he was.
So on a the way back, a short while later, as we sailed along in a mild breeze, probably not over 4 NTS, all of a sudden my buddy exclaimed: hey, look what swims behind us! Low and behold, us unknowing or unseen, Shadow the Sea-dog had decided to jump in and was swimming full dog speed behind us!
Now this is scary, if its anything else than a Labrador, but as you probably know, a Lab is a perfect swimmer. So we decided to practice “Dog Over Board” which is fun to do. Its basically the same maneuver you would do if it’s a human, no difference at all.
Make the figure eight, come up alongside and have the dog on the lee side, two set of hands lifted him back into the cockpit, and off we were back on the course.
After the wet-shower we received when he brushed off himself, he decided to stay inside for the reminder of the sail.
I bet he is anxiously awaiting new sailing adventures coming this spring…
Capt. Pierre Wallinder
