It wasn't easy being one of only two women sailing the International 14 sailing skiff in Australia and one of only a small number in the World. And the only one going to our Nationals.
What is this I14 of which I speak?
It's a crazily fast 14ft lightweight sailing dinghy/skiff with a large sail area, kept upright by the leveraged weight of the two crew hanging out on trapezes (lines secured to the upper section of the mast supporting the crewperson by being hooked to a special trapeze belt) [googling I14 sailing should bring up plenty of pictures]
The Nationals were in Sydney and I wanted to attend, but my crew injured himself two weeks before the event and I was left searching for a replacement. No one in the Victorian fleet was available but our West Australian colleges came to my rescue with an experienced crew who had wanted to attend the nationals but whose skipper couldn't make it.
He was flying into Sydney the same day I was driving up; two days before the regatta begun. Working these boats with a new crew is no easy thing; however skilled they are. So I was looking forward to getting in a brief sail late in the day of my arrival and a more comprehensive one the following day.
I arrived at the boat park to find a number of boats already ahead of me; which was good because it gave me plenty of hands to get the boat off the trailer and the gear unpacked. Among the gaggle of familiar males that had come to help me, one approached me...
"Hi. Are you Jane?"
In the middle of untying the boat from the trailer, I only half looked up at this male offering an outstretched hand and I grasped it as I answered...
"Yes."
"I'm Ted."
It is difficult to describe the feeling I had as I shook his hand. I'd never felt it before, at least in the context of a mere handshake. I suppose in retrospect it was a rapid onset of a degree of arousal, but at the time I didn't recognise it as such because, frankly, that's not how one is supposed to react to shaking the hand of a stranger. All I knew in the moment is that my vagina and nipples were reacting in a very strange way.
There was something in his voice - a reassuring, strong but kind masculinity -- that I first noticed, accompanied by the warm, almost cuddly, but firm feel of his handshake which together first triggered it. But it was when I looked up and studied him properly my system went ballistic.
In front of me was the most perfect male I'd ever met; at least in my eyes.
The smile was what first hit me. It was beautiful; wide, friendly, embracing. There was just something about it which spoke of the person within. Mounted on a handsome face framed by blonde, sea bleached hair; I just wanted to kiss it.
And that was before I had the chance to scan his body. Oh my god. It was like Adonis stood before me. In a tight T shirt and a pair of shorts, he was tall, slender, but strongly built; well, he was the perfect crew if that's all I was looking for. And that's all I was meant to be looking for. But there was something happening in my groin that was more like the sexual equivalent of an intravenous injection of four doses of caffeine hitting you all at once.
I continued to hold his hand for way too long as I added to my simple greeting...
"Thanks for coming up to race with me. I was hoping to get some practice in this afternoon and tomorrow. Is that OK with you?"
I nearly melted with the sonorous but friendly and reassuring tone of his voice
"That would be great. It could be a challenging series and we'd better sort out working together."
I couldn't help but keep casting my eyes over him as we moved the boat and gear to the rigging area, staying in a position that let me watch him without him seeing me do so.
I began to fret that I was dressed in my comfortable driving gear; very loose baggy shorts and an equally baggy long sleeve cotton pullover. Sure, if I sat the right way in the right spot, he'd have a grandstand view up my shorts of the small black panties covering my pussy. But that wasn't really the way I wanted to make an impression on him.
It wasn't that I didn't have something to display, it was just that what I was wearing wasn't doing it. On the tall and slender side like him, I knew I was what most guys would regard as attractive; a shapely figure, nice legs and pretty face and long blonde hair; all capped by perky breasts on the upper end of the B cup size. And a smooth olive complexion which was reasonably flawless.
Normally I don't flaunt myself in the boat rigging yard because I know I attract a lot of what one might call 'the male gaze'. But I suddenly felt the urge to do just that. A whole yard of males might get some benefit from my wanting to attract the attention of one male, but that suddenly didn't matter.
As we settled down and started to prepare for rigging the boat, I indicated...
"It's been a long drive, I might go and change into some sailing clothes."
Grabbing some stuff from my bag, I headed over to the clubhouse change rooms.
'Sailing clothes' can have a number of meanings. Most commonly it might mean the wetsuits or whatever else you might wear on the boat. In my case it meant something to wear in the rigging yard. The figure hiding wetsuits and other stuff could wait a while.
I was tempted to return merely wearing a bikini. The day was certainly hot enough for it and if not too concerned about the male gaze, I've done it before. But it was also sunny and I needed some protection. I put on my nicest bikini pants -- a very minimalist Brazilian style one with a smooth, thin, shiny spandex texture that really shows off my butt and mound; especially from behind when I bend over -- and combined it with a sailing long sleeve polo sun top. The shirt is old -- but little used and in good condition because I keep it for sailing. But having been bought well before I fully grew up, it stretches to cling to my body tightly but comfortably, very much displaying my figure and leaving a midriff gap and, if I don't wear something under it, my nipples clearly showing underneath. Normally I wear the matching bikini top. This time I didn't.
Being the only female sailor in a park full of males -- most of them older than me -- I knew most eyes were looking at me as I returned to my boat. But there was only one pair of eyes I was interested in.
I could see Ted was a little taken aback when I came back and couldn't help but notice he had trouble taking his eyes off me and now it was he who often seemed to position himself so he could perve at me without (he thought) being caught. In other words he was doing exactly the same as I'd done while walking the boat across the park, and was still doing.
I found many opportunities to bend over into the boat to fix something as we rigged, well aware he was right behind me and I was offering the a very seductive sight.
Was I prick teasing? Possibly. But then, whether he knew it or not, he was cunt teasing me in just the same way; enough that my nipples were poking on high beam through my shirt and I was starting to have some concerns about a possible damp stain between my legs and even of my labia escaping the narrow gusset of my bikini pants -- even if that didn't stop me bending over.
And increasingly, as we did two person jobs, I found my hip and upper thigh pushed against his, instead of being kept at the millimetre gap one usually uses.
Where this was all going, I didn't have a clue. I'd had relationships before. But nothing like this. I had the hots in a way I'd never felt and wasn't sure I knew how to navigate them.
The boat being ready for sailing provided at least some distraction. With the day being hot and the wind somewhat moderate and warm, I went for my spandex leggings and a long sleeve, close fitting, rashie (a spandex sun top for those who have other names for them). Whether it was deliberate or just his thing, Ted went for a pair of board shorts and no top other than a lather of sunscreen. That meant, even under the lifevest and trapeze belt that would go over everything else, I'd have a muscle bound chest constantly in my field of vision. Just what I needed in my present state. Not!
We launched without any issues and headed down harbour to the area off the heads where most of the racing would take place.
Now one of the things about being out on trapeze is that you have little to balance yourself with. The trapeze line -- from the skipper's position especially -- angles steeply forward towards the mast. That means there's a constant pull forward; more so when the boat is sailed flat -- as it should be -- since gravity is providing only a minimal transfer of weight through to your feet to help you keep in contact with the boat. Conversely, a wave catching you unexpectedly can easily wash you off the back of the boat.
To finish the comedy of possible errors then there is the aptly named, long used (but now laughed at by outsiders) tea bagging, where the boat actually leans over towards you so far that you get dumped in the water, lose your grip on the boat and are left dangling and, bouncing up and down in the water on the end of the trapeze string and somewhat helpless.
All of these things are regular occurrences and a well worked up crew will often use the balance of the other crew -- by a hand on the shoulder or thigh or even an arm around their back -- to recover their balance.
As it turned out, we soon recognised the benefit of the pre-race training. A few differences in process were quickly worked out.
But one I took a while to get used to was that Ted, when playing the mainsheet, sailed the boat flatter than my usual crew. To be clear, flat is good and flat is fast and it showed how good a crew Ted was. But it also left me much more unbalanced on the trapeze than I was used to.
The other thing we needed to adjust to was the rolling waves coming through the heads; waves much, much bigger than I had seen before, even if they weren't as bad for a cross chop as Port Phillip Bay waves. The boat had a tendency to fly off the top of a wave going to windward -- almost airborne -- and pitch down and threaten to bury itself in the pit of a wave with the spinnaker up downwind. Both these things, while they could be helped by better steering than I started with, also added to both our instability on the trapeze.
I found myself constantly grabbing Ted's thigh to stop me going forward and pushing him off balance too; and it's not just a quick shove. It sometimes take the best part of a minute to settle yourself down again using your partner to hold yourself in place while you rebalance your stance. But all that was familiar ground and very much part of sailing these boats.
Things went a bit weird when a big lurch saw me grab for his thigh and instead put my hand down the gap between the top of his trapeze belt and his boardies, half grabbing the very top of his thigh where it met his crotch and with two fingers over his cock as it lay in his pants. It was clear he had nothing underneath the boardies and it was a single layer of light stretchy material between my hand and his cock.
Still completely off balance, all I could do was say...
"Sorry...I'm still not balanced."
The trouble was, being off balance, my steering had become a bit wobbly, which made me more off balanced. And I didn't have enough stability to move my hand from where it inappropriately clung on to his body. As I struggled to get my act back together and Ted even used his spare hand to try and get me righted, I felt his cock harden under my hand. It was a good half mongrel by the time I removed it; and I'm not going to write what it did to me, the adrenalin of the instability notwithstanding...
