Because I used to race sailboats and still have an interest therein, I
occasionally browse another site dedicated to the sport. Now, I have
to say up front that racing a sailboat is not a simple exercise. Even
assuming that you have a worthy craft, the level of information,
expertise, preparation, and tuning necessary to be competitive at any
level is substantial.

As an example, allow me to discuss only a simple mainsail. It's a big
triangular piece of what could loosely be called cloth, though it's
probably made of synthetics and composites that didn't exist ten years
ago. Hoisting the main, you have to make sure you don't put too much
tension on the halyard, because that will stretch the foreward edge of
the sail, pulling the draft forward, and messing up the shape you paid
the sailmaker $$$ to build into it. But there is another control used
to more carefully adjust the luff tension, and you need to tighten
that to adjust the position of the draft to suit the wind and sea
conditions. Similarly, you have a control at the aft corner by which
you can pull the sail flatter for more or less power. Depending on
where you set the sheet position with the traveller, you can adjust
the twist. (The wind strength aloft is different than at sea level.)
All of this before you actually trim the sail. There are, of course,
other ways to affect the effectiveness of the mainsail by shaping the
rig as well; bending the mast, adjusting the rake, etc.

Now mutiply that effort by all of the sails and systems on the boat,
add in the necessaity of reading not only the wind where you are, but
also the wind where you might be headed, and the what the wind will be
doing in the next minute or next hour.

On and on. It's a lot of fun, but it's not a sport for someone who
just wants to sit on deck with a cold beer.

So why do I bring this up here? Because in the forums of that sailing
website, a discussion broke out about fly fishing. I was almost
stunned to read a post from a guy who loves yacht racing who thought
fly fishing was "too much fuss."

For his better understanding, I responded with an analogy that fly
fishing was to spin fishing as sailing was to powerboats. It's about
the enjoying journey, not reaching the destination as quickly as
possible. Yeah, a took a few poetic stabs at the romance of reading
the water, thinking like a fish, blah, blah, blah. But too much
fuss? Nah.