In a future letter to his young sons, Dan Cooney writes about attending reunions.  Musta been a good one:
http://www.danstwothings.com/attend-reunions/

Tips for getting on a fun boat for beer-can sailboat races

If you think you know what you're doing:

• Try not to act like it: do your job well, and figure out how you can make the team better from whatever position you're put in
• Be patient; your time will come.  If it doesn't, then you're on the wrong boat... or you're not as good as you thought
• Show how smart you are during debrief over beers, not by grabbing the kite sheet out of the trimmer's hands during a set
• Try learning a new position, or all of the positions on the boat.  This can only help the team, and help your sailing career as well.

If you don't know what you're doing:

• First you've got to find a boat.  Sailors like booze.  Go to bars.  Find the preppiest and/or dirtiest people, and ask them if they know any sailors who need crew on (insert local race day-of-week here) nights.  This works best in places near water, and not so well in like, High Desert, CA.
• Once you're on a boat, it's one of those things where you might show up twice as "rail meat" or "moveable ballast", then the third time the captain says, "well Kate, Joe's not here so tonight you're doing Joe's job."  Hilarity ensues... but that's how you learn.
• The actual opportunity to race will come down to...

1. team need: some weeks they might have all the regulars, and the new guy is out of luck
2. reliability: be honest about your availability and don't flake once you commit; no one wants to play soccer or football with only 10 on the field and if you do have to bail last minute, let everyone know, not just your poor messenger/friend
3. enthusiasm: for learning and fun; all types of teams need both, and you might be just the guy to kick the group into gear

• Don't forget this is a team, just like a soccer team, or a brick-laying team or a project team.  The goal is to work together and strive to do the best you can.  Once you start to get better, see first section above.