> It was a ruling trip. I don't remember completely what I did, since it was a long time ago, but there are several things I remember very well. The main thing was sailing. We went out on the Ijsselmeer for one day in sailboats... little Dutch sailboats. They have these little flipper-looking things on the side.... I'll see if I can find a picture for reference. They had no motors, just sails. There was one BIG sailboat, able to hold all of us at once, and about 10 little sailboats that could hold 4-5 people each. Each little boat had a teacher or parent that KNEW about sailing to help us.
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> That was so fun. I learned that sailboats lean to one side, which scared the heck out of me at first (I thought we were going to tip over or something). We sailed all over the place. I got to steer for a while, and it was also my job to raise the little flipper-thingies on the side of the boat. We spent all day sailing.
> Sosi"of course, coming back to the public school system after this kind of schooling was a major shock"qui

I'm going to need some help from Brunnen-G or somebody else who knows sailing, but I think those little flipper-thingies are called lee boards or dragger boards or something like that. They serve the same purpose as the centerboard on the keel, which is to keep the boat sailing straight even in a cross wind. But they have the advantage of being easy to raise, allowing the boat to go into shallow water.
Remember, you are hearing this from a guy who has never been on board a sailing sailboat. I toured "Old Ironsides" and visited a friend on his sloop, but both of those were tied to the dock.
Sailboats have their own language, which unfortunately isn't on my electroic translater.
Howard