I'm guessing he already had a second hand when he bought the 49er. Tell him that is the plan.......... Does he ride? You don't ask him to break horses to ride, right?
Truth be known, like most non-horsey people, he's a bit afraid of them. He sees Latte and Sunny standing out there and says, "they're . . . big."
But no, when he got the 49er, he didn't have anyone to help sail it; neither of the kids had done much in the way of sailing. They'd ridden a few times on their uncle's Hobie 21, but that's a "party boat" (seriously, it has built-in cup holders!). The 49er is like a horse with a "lead deficiency." You must be constantly on your toes, because it will try to kill you every 5 minutes or with every change in the breeze, whichever happens more frequently. I referred to it the other day as "the sea witch," and Critter laughed. "As in 'let's
see which way it's gonna capsize next?'" he said.
DS has shown some interest in sailing the 49er with his dad, but they need pretty quiet conditions in which to acquire the skills needed. They took it out a couple of weeks ago and capsized 3 times. Critter summed up their day :"We never did get a chance to try deploying the spinnaker, but I found out the righting lines I rigged on it work beautifully."
The new boat is a Force 5, which is a small sailboat similar to a Laser. It can be sailed by one or two people, and is altogether a more docile and reasonable craft than a 49er. Critter figures he and DS can take it out on days when the wind would make the 49er too temperamental for them to handle - which I reckon as being about 95% of the time.
Hopefully, they will have a lot of fun with this one.