The phenomenology of image and enthusiasm for the experience of foiling sailboats

ABSTRACT

As human beings, we formulate meanings to our actions, making them more precious than if they were composed only of objective goals. The sporting experience transcends its pragmatic goals and its meaning is linked to what excites us in the practice itself. To discuss the elements that make sports and leisure practices an exciting experience, we propose a way of exploring these elements based on the image phenomenology of Gaston Bachelard. In this article, we bring reflections on the bases of this phenomenological view, and then we illustrate this through discussing foiling sailboats use. We argue that sports and leisure practices triggers poetic images, which in the case of foil navigation encompass immensity, freedom, purity and enlightenment. In such a way, foiling a sailboat does not only entail travelling a distance at a certain height and at high speeds. Thus, analysing poetic images considering the phenomenology of Gaston Bachelard, we find a way to uncover the enthusiasm felt by athletes as well as regular practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Sailing
• phenomenology
• material imagination
• foiling
• Gaston Bachelard

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Free translation of: ‘A linguagem, a arte, o mito, a religião, a ciência e a história expressam um universo simbólico, são formas simbólicas, criações que se interpõem entre o homem e o mundo’. (Ferreira-Santos & Almeida, 2012, p. 30).

2. The nacra 17 is a high-tech sailboat manufactured in the Netherlands, which makes it very expensive for Brazilian sailors. Moreover, in Brazil there are few public marinas, which requires sailors to bear the costs of a guardhouse. In fact, in 2021 one of the authors stopped sailing nacra 17 for financial reasons.

3. Foiling is a radical experience that suggests risks. During the research there were no serious accidents, only falls that resulted in bruises, muscle pain and superficial cuts. Certain safety precautions were essential, as was the use of a helmet.

4. Sailing appears to be an ‘eco friendly’ sport although we observe that in certain championships each team is accompanied by a dinghy that runs on gasoline, which generates a considerable amount of CO2. Furthermore, in previous field research (Hackerott, 2018) we heard testimonials from traditional fishermen who were unhappy with the practice of kitesurfing for scaring certain types of fish in the region that they used to fish. It is worth remembering that the practice investigated in this research did not have a support motor boat and did not take place in a fishing area. However, we also didn’t set out to think about the environmental impacts of the practice, which certainly exist, like any other human activity.

5. Free translation of: ‘O cosmos se torna uma espécie de espelho e de alavanca de nossa transformação de nós mesmos, suscitando vivências novas que nos descentram, nos elevam, nos amadurecem’.

6. Nacra 17 foil is a kind of sailboat with hydrofoil that was developed to be part of the Olympic Program (2020–2024) as a multihull for a crew of one woman and one man.

7. These Brazilian lyrics mean: ‘Whoever wants to be from the sky does not waver in front of the sea’.

8. We say the boat is sailing downwind when the wind blows from behind the boat. And crosswind, is when the wind blows from the side of the boat.

9. Free translation of: ‘O céu, na metafísica poética de Bachelard, é espelho das águas. Todo voo é continuidade de um nado ancestral e pode, por detrás da leveza da flutuação no universo rarefeito, esconder a profundidade de um mergulho aquático’.

10. Foiling on downwind is possible to reach an average of 25 knots. While in the nacra 17 version without foil the approximate speed was 15 knots. These are very fast speeds compared to other types of sailboats.

11. As erudite as the concept of freedom is, it is in the speech of all humanity and is often portrayed as a sensation rather than a philosophical concept. It is in this perspective that we use the mythopoetic sense of freedom, a sense that considers our tendency to poiesis (Kirinus, 2008).

12. When the sailor is on the trapeze he wears a ‘harness’, which engages a cable that runs from the height of the hull to the top of the mast. In this way, the sailor is able to make a counterweight by projecting his entire body out of the vessel, supporting himself on the hull with his feet only.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) - Financial Code 001.

Notes on contributors

Maria Altimira Hackerott

Maria Altimira Hackerott is a doctoral student in Physical Education in the area of Sociocultural Studies at the School of Physical Education and Sports of the University of São Paulo, researching experiences lived by women athletes. She has a masters degree (2018) and an undergraduate degree (2013) in physical education also from EEFE-USP, is a level 2 sail coach certified by World Sailing and is part of a study group called PULA (group of interdisciplinary studies in the fields of image phenomenology and anthropology of imaginary) since 2012.

A.C. Zimmermann

Ana Cristina Zimmermann Associate Professor at the School of Physical Education and Sports/EEFE at the University of São Paulo (USP). PhD in Education at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) with a period at the School of Education, University of Nottingham, (UK) and Postdoc at the University of Paris. She works in the Postgraduate Program at the School of Physical Education and Sports/EEFE and at the Faculty of Education/USP. Her research interests cover aspects of embodiment, dialogue and philosophical dimensions of human movement, traditional sports and games.

S.C. Saura

Soraia Chung Saura holds a BA in Philosophy from the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (2001) and Doctorate in Imaginary Anthropology from the School of Education of the University of São Paulo. Associate Professor at the Department of Pedagogy of the Human Body Movement, School of Physical Education and Sports, University of São Paulo. Advisor in the Postgraduate Program at the School of Physical Education and Sports/EEFE and at the Faculty of Education/USP. Among her interests are intersections with cultural, artistic, leisure, traditional games and sports productions, play in an anthropo-philosophical emphasis and in the field of sports philosophy and imaginary phenomenology.