Riding Out the Storm

2 November 2014

Our first snow storm of the year blew through the region today.  It did not bring much accumulation here along the coast, but the winds were pretty strong.  My neighbor, Jolly Jack, was a bit anxious about my boat, since it was still in the water.  Jack takes his Grady White powerboat out of the water after Labor Day, but I did not want to haul out Piao quite so early.  It is my first year with the boat, and I have had such an enjoyable time, so I was hoping for some pleasant autumn sailing.

Back in the spring, I was required to have my mooring inspected.  I had purchased the mooring gear from my next-door neighbor, who used to own a powerboat.  He sold me a 250-lbs mushroom anchor, mooring chain, mooring ball, and a "tall boy" pendant (buoy) for $250.  He also wrote a letter to the Marion Harbormaster, offering to turnover his mooring spot to me.  Since the mooring is on the Weweantic River, this was not a problem -- moorings in Sippican harbor, for the million-dollar sailboats of the Marion Blue-Hairs, have a waiting list that can take years.

When the diver came to inspect the mooring in May, however, he discovered that the chain was worn dangerously thin.  "I don't know how your boat is still there," he told me.  Of course, he had new chain with him and offered to do the replacement for a modest fee of about $150.  When he showed me the old chain, with several shackles worn and rusted as thin as a credit card, I was a little less annoyed and a little more appreciative.

Then came the November blow, and I became VERY appreciative.  Piao weathered the storm nicely.

Piao in the storm.  Yeeha.

The following Monday, when I drove down to work at Stony Brook (Long Island -- yes, it is a rather long commute), I came across a sailboat that had broken from its mooring and drifted downwind to wash up on the rocks of the lee shore.  Very dramatic.  Also very heartbreaking.

s/v 'Courageous Cat' on the rocks

"That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

when the 'Gales of November' came early."

Site of wreck in Mount Sinai Harbor

The Cedar Beach mooring field lies to the north

2014.X.30 - Last Sail

Solo #11
Thursday, 30 October 2014
HW 1344; LW 1903
Clear; 50 degrees (F)
Winds NNW 5-7, gusts 10
12.1nm
Ave Speed 2.5 kts; Max 5.2 kts
Dpt 1130; Arr 1640
5h10min


Gorgeous autumn day!  Temps in the fifties, not a cloud in the sky, a very gentle breeze -- everything one needs to be "knot working."  Ah, the pleasures of a life in academia.  They may not pay you a whole lot, but there are other benefits besides a paycheck.....

Everyone else, however, has to work.  I'll "work" tonight.  For the day, I went down to Dexter's alone for what was to be my last sail of the season.  Most of the boats had been hauled out already, save for a few diehards.  I'm very happy I kept mine in -- squeezing every last day out the season: first in, last out.  Hooyah.

Getting a little lonely out there....

When I got out to the boat, I discovered that there had been some trespassers in my absence.  Although they had not taken anything, they had left their calling cards.   Next year I need to install some real air defenses.  This shit has to stop.

This is getting out of hand

It is as if they were doing target practice.....

Think its funny, eh?  Μαλακα!

It takes a while to clean off so much birdshit.  You really have to scrub and scrub.  What did I do to piss them off??  Finally, around 11:30, I had the deck and housing (and motor) as clean as it was going to get.  I hoisted the mainsail and cast off, sailing down the river on a run at 2.5 knots.

Autumn foliage and million dollar properties along the Weweantic

Directly across from Dexter's Cove is a large black-hulled sailboat.  I call it the 'Black Pearl,' because it is like a ghost ship.  The kids call it the "pirate ship."  I'm not sure what its real name is, since you can never see the transom.  This boat is quite the topic of conversation at the "Dexter's Yacht Club."  I am told that each summer the owner (who summers across the river there) pays someone to sail the boat up here from its winter residence.  Then the boat sits there, docked all season, never going out, until the end of the summer when the owner pays someone to sail it away again.  If you ask me (or even if you don't ask me), I think that is a shameful waste.  I want to lobby Congress to introduce new legislation that mandates forfeiture of any vessel if you do not use it.  Hah!  And they think Obama is a 'socialist!'  Use it or lose it.  Plenty of people who could never afford a nice boat like that but would take much better care -- and use -- of it.  Watch out, when the revolution starts, you know where you can find me.

"Black Pearl" awaiting its autumn migration

As I reached the mouth of the river, the wind shifted slightly and the mainsail jibed.  I could feel it coming, and grabbed the mainsheet just in time, slowing the boom as it swung around violently.  Good thing it was only a gentle breeze.  Good thing I was sitting down, too.....

Running toward Great Hill

By 11:50 I had cleared the R6 NavAid and set the jib as well.  Roaring along at head-spinning 2.2 knots!  Yeeha!  Break out the tether and jack lines...

A powerboat came by, headed toward Wareham.  Being a friendly and amicable guy, I waved but my salute was ignored.  I called for a radio check on the VHF, but got no response either.  Powerboaters (or "stink-potters") are not a particularly friendly lot, at least not particularly friendly toward sailboaters.  Of course there are exceptions -- such as my friends Jolly Jack and Captain Kirk.  But powerboaters from Wareham seem to have particularly large anuses.  Wareham is a very special community with real charm.  Jolly Jack's wife, a realtor, refers to it as "Brockton-by-the-Sea."  You have to know Brockton to get that joke.....

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

The "Castle" at the Stone Estate on Great Hill
Funny how the foliage on the east side of the peninsula is so colorful, while these trees on the south point are still all green

By early afternoon, alone on the bay, I was feeling sufficiently cocky to try a neat maneuver: running downwind with the foresail on a tack to one side of the boat and the mainsail on a tack to the other side.  There wasn't much wind, so the risk of an accident jibe was minimized.  If I had a spinnaker pole, maybe I could get that jib out there a bit further.  Can't afford a spinnaker right now, alas, or even a spinnaker pole for that matter.  Thinking about crowd-sourcing the funding for that.  Wondering what to get me for Christmas?

"Wing-and-Wing"

Life is Good....

As I sailed lazily around upper Buzzards Bay, I decided to practice getting the boat to "heave-to."  This has nothing to do with heaving up your lunch.  Rather, this is a procedure that slows or stops the progress of the vessel, so that you can take a break, eat lunch, go below, use the head, repair a leak, wait for the tide to turn, ride out a storm, or otherwise amuse oneself.  You "heave" on the windward jib-sheet, backing the foresail to windward, while easing the main-sheet.  The tiller/rudder it put hard-over, as if you were trying to turn the boat to windward.  However, with the mainsail eased and the foresail "backed," the boat slows almost to a stop.  Any forward momentum would tend to turn the boat even more to windward, thus slowing you even more.  Its actually a pretty neat trick.  I need to practice this some more.  Should probably also practice crew-overboard drills.

For years I've been reading about ships "hove to" to ride out storms.  I'm a big fan of maritime literature, especially from the "Age of Sail."  In fact, I have a whole bookcase devoted to that collection.  The Admiral does not appreciate my book collection.  She does not see the point of buying books.  "That's what libraries are for," she argues.  I really enjoyed the late Patrick O'Brian's twenty-volume Aubrey-Maturin series (or 21-volumes if you count the aptly named unfinished last book, The Unfinished Last Voyage of Jack Aubrey).  On the non-fiction front, my favorites include:

 Barry Cunliffe's The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek

Scott Ridley's (not Ridley Scott's) Morning of Fire -- featuring local hero Captain Kendrick of Wareham

Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea

John Toohey's Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare

 Laurence Bergen's Over the Edge of the World

Derek Lundy's The Way of a Ship

And Brian Fagan's Beyond the Blue Horizon.

(not be confused with Alfred Santell's 1942 film of the same name)

Enough about my book collection already.  I know I would catch hell from the Admiral if she were to read this -- fortunately for me, she refuses to read my blog anymore.  "Boring!" she says.

Just after 2:00pm, I passed a flock of about forty birds sitting on the surface of the water.  Maybe they were tired, or maybe they were looking for a missing friend tangled in a fishing line.  I figured they were looking for fish, and it would be in my best interest to get as far away from them as possible before they shit on me again.

My nemeses, reloading for another air strike

By mid-afternoon, the breeze had died.  I really enjoy sailing, but I must confess that it is not so much fun when you are only making 0.9 knots.  So I headed back towards home.  On my way in, I ran into -- figuratively speaking, I'm happy to say -- my friend Captain Kirk.  Kirk is an old salty dog who has spent his life on the water.  He used to sail, and used to have a lobster boat, but now runs about in his Pursuit.  Sometimes you'll see him heading out or coming in from a fishing trip (of course, he will never say where he finds the fish -- only "out there in the ocean.").  Today, he and his wife Judith were headed over to the 'Chart Room' in Pocasset for their evening cocktail.  Kirk is not a part-owner of the Chart Room, but he should be.....

Kirk and Judith aboard the 'Hey Judes'

Loathe to call it a day, on such a nice day late in the season, I decided to sail up the Weweantic river a bit.  The birds were chilling at 'cormorant rock,' eyeing me wistfully as I sailed by.

Don't even think about it.....

Edgewater Lane, from the water, showing the home of my friend, Jolly Jack.

I went upriver as far as the Briarwood Beach neighborhood just south of the Route 6 bridge.  North of the bridge the river forks: the Sippican leading to the northwest and Weweantic to the northeast.  The Admiral and I have explored both rivers on our tandem kayak, the Tiffany-May (named after the month in which I presented her with the engagement ring -- isn't that sweet?).  But the sailboat would not fit under the bridge.  Fortunately, it did fit under the power lines that run across the Weweantic here.  Earlier this summer, not one but TWO sailboats clipped those power lines.  One was de-masted and had to be towed away by TowBoat US.  The other, a large catamaran on a maiden voyage (!), actually caught fire and burned to the waterline.  Fortunately, no one was injured but the boat was a complete ruin.  Sounds like someone should have paid better attention in tenth grade geometry class, or at least read their charts more carefully.  It was quite the event: Police, Fire Boats, USCG, news helicopters, and schadenfreude spectators all converging on the scene.

Power lines and the Rt. 6 bridge over the Weweantic

Returning to Dexter's, I brought Piao over to the dock.  I was very proud of my docking maneuver, but I also should practice this more.  I washed down the deck again, this time rinsing the boat soap off with fresh water.  Then I unloaded non-essential gear in preparation for winter haul-out.

Piao at Dexter's dock.  Who da man?

Not as simple as it looks to jump off and tie up before the boat drifts away.....

Celebrated a great day of final sailing by tapping into my still-unused 'Captain's Reserve.'  Although, it doesn't really lighten the boat to shift that bourbon from the flask to the belly.

It has a been a great first year with the boat!  I am so very happy.  What a great find!

Thanks to all those who helped me crew her this summer: Mark, Don, Dennis, Jack, Lauryn, Dylan, Kalliopi, Myra, Arlene, Frank, and of course the Admiral herself.

Thank you, Bob & Linda, for all the advice, encouragement, and free boat "goodies."

Thank you, Ric, for taking such good care of her as the Previous Owner, and for donating her to Mass Maritime for their auction.

Thank you, (other) Dennis, for buying her at that auction and then parting with her for only $1000.  Otherwise, I could never afford to buy a sailboat.

And thank you, Dennis's wife, for pressuring your husband into making that deal by threatening him that he will have to sleep on the boat if he doesn't sell it before the end of the weekend -- he already owned four other sailboats, and she did not want a fifth parked in their yard or driveway all winter.

I still remember that Christopher Cross song from 1980:

Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me

And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility

Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see

...

Sailing takes me away to where I've always heard it could be

Just a dream and the wind to carry me

Next year: maybe I'll make for the Vineyard.  Just don't tell my mom.....