The seas were angry that day, my friend.
Starting out, "So, I went in this sailboat race in Halifax Harbour," (and letting the "Harbour" rise in oft-used-by-youth questioning tone) does not carry the authority of, "The seas were angry that day, my friend." The latter was recommended to me by one of the crew and I'm rather attached to it after practising it in the car as New Brunswick then Quebec flashed by. So...
The seas were angry that day, my friend. The spinnaker was proud, the mainsail taut, the hull lying over on starboard for the tack. Or not. It might have been port. It might have been gybe. Lying over on port for the gybe. I was too busy scuttling at "break" and clinging at "ready about" to remember which side was over for what. And the seas were angry, but they were showing it by pouting. On the home stretch that spinnaker sagged as the sky held its breath. For which an Ontario girl was grateful. Her scuttling hadn't been deft.
Why are ropes called sheets? If you are escaping from an asylum, your sheets can become ropes, but when are ropes sheets? How are Ontario farmlanders supposed to catch onto that? And you, you Ontario farmlander or Torontonian, you think I've spelled gybe wrong. You think it's jibe. But I looked it up.