August 10 to 24 -- Not Much Sailing

We began by going to a lovely wedding of friend's daughter, out on Long Island.

Lene, Lianne, Ellen and Rudy

Then came Lene's successful surgery: laperoscopic removal of the malignancy in her left lung and her return after two nights in the hospital. We were very lucky to have such a good outcome due to an accidental early detection.

There was also a membership meeting at the Harlem YC to discuss our need for an assessment to pay for mistakes of the past such as forgetting to pay the taxes we collected and the need to come up with not just the taxes, but  penalty and interest as well. Self inflicted wounds caused by volunteers who are human and hence fallible. Been one; done that. The more important issue was how to create a mechanism to try to insure against repetitions of such debacles. Creation of a new position: A designated Pain In The Butt Officer who will have a calendar of dates when payments and license renewals, etc. are due and whose sole function will be to bug the other members of the Board and demand to see that the checks (taxes, payroll and insurance) and applications (occupancy, fire safety, etc.) are written.

And a visit to Fran, in Western Connecticut where a smaller boat was involved.

Mendy in the bow; can you see his muscles?

Also, I worked about thirteen hours during three days on many small projects involving electrical, carpentry, plumbing, sanding and varnishing. I'll spare you the details.

And there were three days of sailing though short ones, totaling only about eight hours.

1)  With Bennett, bringing his boat, fresh from the repair of damage caused by a close encounter with a rocky bottom, from Barron's Yard, on the other side of City Island, back to the Club, but with a sail through the channel off Kings Point and to Throggs Neck, about two hours, in light winds and smooth seas. A pleasant day.

2) With the Wednesday afternoon sailing club (formerly and sometimes currently called The Old Farts). This group assembled automatically and organically in prior years but has had a rocky start this season so I organized this outing, the second one this year. While still not a success, we did get nine folks out on two boats for a couple of hours. With me on ILENE were Richie, who no longer owns a boat, Rhoda, and Alfred and Leona. The latter two are older, averaging in their higher 80's,  and while Alfred's ability to steer, learned in German waters before WWII, is unimpaired, his ability to see is not as good and I had to stand close while he was at the wheel to get us back on course. Leona had great difficulty in the transfers between the launch and the boat -- knee problems -- and actually hurt her arm on the way off. Sorry Leona. Both great sports and Alfred will be back. The other vessel was Brian and Angela's "Debut," a Bristol. With them were Morty and Clara. The G&Ts were supplied by Alfred and Leona after two hours of sailing in light winds to the east coast of Mamaroneck Bay and back.

3)  We sailed in the Club's 60th (or so) running of the Sidney J. Treat Regatta. Lene steered, our nephew, Mendy, did most of the winching and Rhoda and Lloyd helped out as well.  But we are the scratch boat and have to finish far in front of the other boats so our time after PHRF handicap correction, will still have us as the winner. Specifically we were assigned a handicap of 87 compared to the others in our division, which ranged from 123 to 234.  And the upshot is that of the five boats that finished (out of six that entered), we were next to last in actual time and dead last after corrected time.  So I guess I better explain why we lost. These are the reasons, not excuses. The biggest problem is that due entirely to my fault, we were way out of place and did not get to the starting line until about two minutes after the race started. In a race that lasted less than 43 minutes, this is a deadly sin. Another thing was lack of crew training and practice. Mendy is very strong and very willing, but I had not trained him so I had to tell him what to do which slowed things down.  The last reason other than my mistakes was the nature of the wind on race day. In very strong wind I can use ILENE's small jib, which is self tacking, making the tacks and jibes very fast, i.e., we do not lose much speed. But in lighter wind, as on race day, the power of the big Genoa is needed and to tack or jibe with it, one has to furl it, do the maneuver and then let it out on the other side, which in such a short race takes ages. For long distance ocean racing, where a tack of gybe might be needed every few hours or even every few days, the loss of a few minutes per maneuver is no big deal and ILENE can do well. Every boat's handicap is computed based on the performance of other boats of the same model in all kinds of races. These results are averaged out. In strong winds ILENE will do well against her handicap but not today.
After the race we took a long loop into Littleneck Bay before returning to the Club to congratulate the winners. ILENE has won Club races but this was not our day. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

For a more interesting post than this one, Google: "Sail Pandora" for an account by our friend, Bob, of his sail on a 180 foot luxury yacht out of Newport RI.