The Harlem Y.C. Visit to the City Island Nautical Museum

Three winters ago I was inspired to organize an expedition of Harlemites to a temporary exhibition mounted in the NY Public Library, by the staff of its Map Room, where I volunteer. The subject was 400 Years of Charting New York's Harbors. This was to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's visit here on the Half Moon in 1608. The show had many charts and other materials, beautifully displayed and clearly explained in the main exhibition hall of the magnificent library, at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Many were of particular interest to those of us who sail here. Admission to the Library's exhibits is always free and after touring the show with two different trained docents and carefully scrutinizing the charts, I appointed myself docent and pointed out what i found most interesting to about 30 folks who learned and had a good time. Then a luncheon, a la carte, was enjoyed at a local eatery. The group seemed to enjoy it.

I realized that there are many other nautically themed places in the New York area that can be of interest to us. We can't actually be sailing in these parts in January and the clubhouse is closed; so we have organize other maritime-related ways to socialize. But during the last two winters, Lene and I were in the Caribbean aboard ILENE. This year our expedition stayed much closer to home and avoided traveling into the city, tolls, parking, etc.

We went to a small museum created less than half a mile from our clubhouse in the landmark-statused original school house that New York City built on City Island.  During the plebiscite in 1898, New York had promised that if the residents voted to join The Bronx, and hence New York City, rather than Westchester County, the City would build them a school.  City Island Nautical Museum.  Many of us have for many years considered the Island, with our boats moored there, as our second home, and yet had never visited the museum.

It was bitterly cold and snow had fallen which may have deterred some of us from venturing out, but there were twelve hardy souls who assembled in one of the old classrooms, now a library with open space suitable for meetings, lined with all things related to the Island. Here we were drenched with information by the Museum's Administrator, Barbara Dolensek, a fountain of knowledge about the history of the Island, and hence about sailing. Because the Island has always had a sailing connection since its discovery by Adrian Block on his way through Long Island Sound to discover Block Island for the Dutch. Barbara, an Island resident, answered all questions and we realized that we had only scratched the surface of her knowledge of her subject.

Then we explored the other rooms of the museum which contains objects and photographs, a good portion of which relate to The Harlem Yacht Club. We have been on the Island for more than the last 100 of the 400 years of its recorded history. A photo of one of our celebrated deceased members, and a model of his boat with the Club's burgee are on display. We saw photos showing where the four remaining clubs on the Island were situated in 1930. A fifth, The Metropolitan YC,  no longer exists; and two had not actually moved onto on the Island until after 1930.

City Island was home to the shipyards where a long chain of Americas Cup yachts were built -- back in the days when Bronx-built wooden racing yachts won that regatta every time. And many other boats were built on the Island, power and sail, civilian and military. A great London Sailmaker, Ratsey & Lapthorn,  had set up the largest sail-making loft in the US on the Island, now a set of condos. Early movies were shot here. Sparkman and Stevens' office was here, as was the office and home of the Rosenfelds, famous black and white photographers of racing yachts.

After filling our minds, we tended to our stomachs; lunch was served at Artie's Italian Seafood Restaurant, around the corner from our Club, where many of us go on days when the Club's kitchen is closed.  This year I arranged a fixed price menu of four entre options to make collecting and paying for the event much easier.

For next year? Several ideas were mentioned. Except for the small turnout, I have to declare that the Harlem's Second Sorta-annual Winter Museum-like Expedition was a success.

It's Such A Big Ocean

I have been enjoying the blog published by Bob of "Pandora," a Saga 43 like "ILENE" at sailpandora.com. Bob, among his many other talents, is a good writer and a good photographer. It is such a pleasure to read his ebullient reports on the things he is experiencing for the first time and that we experienced last winter: The blueness and clarity of the water, the weather-wise eye one must maintain, the balmy temperatures, his wife, Brenda's reactions to their first overnight passage together, etc.

But his reports bring home once again, in case anyone might otherwise forget it, how big the ocean is. Pandora is sailing essentially the reciprocal of the course that ILENE sailed  last winter -- headed for Georgetown, Great Exuma Island, in the Bahamas, where they plan to greet their sons who are flying down. But so often they are staying at different spots compared to us. On the way from the Northeast to Florida, they stayed in different anchorages, more anchorages than marinas, so even if we both stayed in the same town, it was in different spots, except in Charleston, and there we visited different historic places, museums, etc. It is like the six blindfolded sages of India who examine an elephant. One touches the side and says it is a wall; another says the leg is a tree, the tail is a rope, the ear is a fan, etc.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida they stayed at a marina a couple miles up a river. We had planned to go there but stayed in lake Sylvia, which they sailed past. They skipped Bimini and the Berrys and in New Providence (Nassau) they were anchored north of Rose Island while we stayed at a marina on the main island. We skipped Allen Key but we both experienced Warderick Wells. And so it goes.  We spent a lot of time on the route, and there are so many stops along the way that remain uncharted territory for us. It's a big Ocean.  Smooth sailing, Bob and Brenda!

One Small Project: Cabinet Doors

ILENE has almost 20 beautiful cherry wood cabinet doors, each consisting of four side pieces to make a frame and one central rectangle that the other four enclose.  Putting a finger into the hole at the left side of the photo you will feel a brass latch. By pulling it, the door opens from the right on its brass hinges visible here on the left.

This particular door (image by {and of} J. Rice, thank you; and feline enhanced, thank you Alphie Girl) is behind a small vanity, a/k/a cat seat, and with its mirror it has given us no problems. But all the others doors have a rectangular piece of cherry wood  where the mirror is, which is thick except at its four edges, where it fits into the thin grooves in the four framing pieces.

However, the other doors, with wooden centers, have suffered from a minor defect: the central wood panel was made a bit too large. It's fine, except in the hot humid summers. Then center pieces expanded, pushing apart the vertical sides of the frame. As a result the door became larger than designed and hard to force closed.

What to do? My friend KC, who has sailed with me for at least twelve years years, thought about the issue for months. My thought had been to place a piece of scrap wood against the inside of the frame and tap it with a hammer to force it apart. Once apart we clean out the old glue, sand down the central piece which was too large, and glue and clamp the pieces back together again. KC said: hold on a minute; if you don't tap it hard enough, nothing will happen, but if you tap it just a little bit too hard, you will end of with a mess of cracked wood and the need to build an expensive new door.

After the months of noodling KC invented and built a door pulling tool that has been used, during two winters to fix most of ILENE's doors. It has also been used to fix the doors of Bob and Brenda's "Pandora" during a different winter. But the last two of ILENE's doors "expanded" during the last couple of years in the Caribbean and they needed to be fixed as well.

Here is the inside of KC's tool: In the center of the photo you can see the end of an "L" shaped aluminum extrusion sticking down from the top 4 x 4, and a flat piece of aluminum screwed onto the bottom. Both of these extrusions fit up against the inside of the piece of frame to be pushed out. The top extrusion fits into and against  the wide space in the front of the door and the horizontal one fits against the narrow piece of the same piece of frame at the back of the door.  Thus the two aluminum pieces are snugged against the inside of the vertical piece of framing, from the front and the back, preventing it from moving to the right in the picture above.

Here is the rest of the tool. The other two 4 x 4s are clamped tightly to the top and bottom horizontal pieces of the frame with the rubber matting pieces (shown siting at the bottom) to grip the wood and prevent marring. Each pair of 4 x 4s is clamped tightly to the door. 

And then the fun begins. By tightening the nuts next to the inside right right side, one turn at a time, the distance between the pairs of 4 x 4s is extended, very, very slowly. The left side can't move to the right, and the right is slowly pulled to the right. One half turn on each of the four nuts, and then again and again until eventually you hear a popping sound, the glue has given way and and the frame has come neatly apart.

So: one trip up to New Rochelle to get the doors from the boat and another to put them back on. These were sandwiched around the fun day in the power tool laden basement of KC's lovely home out in Somerset County NJ. There KC's lovely wife, Helen, fed me on KC's famous 99 percent crab meat crab cakes. A great day and the doors are now back in place aboard ILENE.  Ah the pleasure of generous friends with skills and tools!

Boat Show Special?

A boat show is the next best thing to sailing?   Nah!!  Not even close.  But at least it keeps you thinking.

The 2013 New York Boat Show, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, was called the Progressive Boat Show. Not because it was progressive -- with only two Hobie Cats and one Sunfish to represent the sailboat manufacturers, it was a REGRESSIVE power boat show! But it was "sponsored" (whatever that means) by the Progressive Insurance Company -- hence the name.

I went on Friday and Sunday to work at our Club's booth. Some of our members are retiring and moving away. Others stop boating due to illness. And  the recession has unfortunately forced some of us to give up boating due to economic pressures. So the number of our members, as at most all clubs, is down -- and our fixed costs are, well, fixed. Our way of soliciting folks is to ask them to sign up to receive an email inviting them to come to the Club for a free "open house," drink some of our wine with cheese and meet some folks. So it is not a hard sell. We cast our wine upon the waters. The problem is that 95 percent of the people at the show are either (A) power boaters who can't conceive of joining a club which keeps boats on moorings or (B) live near their boats but far away from City Island. But the show was crowded and we got a number of prospects. The only problem was too many volunteers at the booth. It is a small booth and six volunteer members behind it makes the space crowded and perhaps intimidates prospects.

So I gallantly absented myself from the booth for substantial periods of time during my four hour shifts and toured the show. I focused on how to sell a friend's boat, and bought stuff like riggers tape, hand tools, and a doughnut shaped container to store the 30 amp shore power cord more efficiently. I also checked out some electronics upgrades and the use of a faux teak product to cover the flat surface of the swim platform, about two square feet, at the stern of the boat, to dress it up.

One of the two  "dogs," the fasteners by which one "battens down the hatches," at one of the six side opening ports (portholes) is broken, so we have kept that particular port closed -- for the last two years. During this period I have tried to find who manufactured the thing so I can buy a replacement dog, but every lead has turned into a dead end. (So you will note: ILENE sails with both dogs and cats!  Sorry about that one.) At the show I passed a big Marquis power cruiser and noticed that its opening ports seemed like those on ILENE. Anyway, the designer of the boat was kind enough to give me his email and has promised to send me info on how to contact the manufacturer of his opening ports.

And oh yes, I signed up to take a nine day course. When I pass the Coast Guard exam they administer, at its end, I will have a so called "Six Pack" Captain's license -- the lawful right to take out up to six passengers and charge them a fee. I have had hundreds of people sail with me these past 20 something years, sometimes more than six at a time, but never even one for a fee. I do not intend to get into the paid sailboat chartering business. And there is a lot of stuff that they will be teaching me that I already know. After all, we did get the boat down to Grenada and back, which is evidence that  I must know something. But learning and the review of learning is always good, and my insurance rates may go down after I become a licensed captain.

Farewell 2012 -- A Great Year

Not much boating activity in December.

I have been enjoying the blogs of two other boating couples: Bob and Brenda on a Saga 43 at www.sailpandora.com, and Dean and Susan on their CSY-44 at www.sailblogs.com/member/autumnborne/.  But both couples have left their respective boats in Florida for holiday recesses from their cruises so their current news is not so sailing related either this last week or so.

At the Harlem clubhouse, we had a work party, ripping out the first floor flooring that got waterlogged during the hurricane and has to be replaced; a small army of willing workers. I also assisting some guys with tremendous carpentry skills who put the seaward wall of the "greenhouse"-like structure of the dining room back into place with shims, inserted in many directions to get it true. I handed them screws, learned and had fun. There was also the interim Board meeting for incoming and outgoing officers to which I was invited in my capacity as outgoing Fleet Captain. Outgoing because since we will be "Down East" this summer, we will not be able to be on the cruise. As the old Yiddish saying goes: "With one tuchus (booty), you can't dance at two weddings." And despite the absence of a usable first floor there was a holiday/staff appreciation party catered on the second floor. The highlight of this lunch party was when my wiry friend, Howard, of the Wednesday afternoon sailing group, padded to the nines and wearing a red suit, white beard and his own white mustachio and jolly personality, was delivered to our dock by the red TowUS towboat with its red light flashing, climbed the steps with a big bag of gifts and distributed them to the 30 or so squealing children whose grandparents had name-labeled the gifts and put them in his bag.

I made one visit to ILENE, late in the month,to charge up her batteries, put back all of the lines which had been removed, washed and dried, take some stuff home, check out the repairs that Precision Marine had done, and snug up the lines that secure the canvas cover under her keel. We have some things to fix, to improve and to buy for her, but I'm taking a break from that.

And three days of land excursions with sailing friends Jim, Josh, Bennett and Harriet.

We have decided, sort of, that while we will go to Maine for the summer of 2013, we will not go the much further distances to get to the northern Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia.

Final tally for 2012: 189 days on the boat sailing or living or both,
                                   22 days working for the boat but not living on her or sailing,
                                   22 "other" days relate to boating such as hanging with boating friends ashore.
It all adds up to 233 days and this does not include the days on the Library chart project or just thinking about boating, which is actually an everyday thing. A great year. I have so much to be grateful for.