October 17 to 27 -- No More Sails This Year; ILENE Is Hauled

My sail with Fred described in the last post, as it turns out, was the final one of the year. There were two frustrating days during which I tried to winterize the Spectra Ventura Watermaker, with five calls to the installer, Headsync, in Newport RI, but he was not able to talk me through the problem and I will have to pay for a visit to get this done. Otherwise, a very expensive toy will be ruined by winter frost. On one of the days I dined with a rump caucus of the Old Salts, but did not go out with them.

And then a weekend with Lene's friend, Lianne, in the Berkshires which ended at the beginning when Lene fell down the stairs to the basement and broke many bones. (Were the sailing Gods punishing me for wasting perfectly good sailing says in the mountains?) The effect was that I became a private duty nurse instead of a sailor for the next week. The surgery to reconstruct Lene's right elbow was successfully accomplished. I did take off one day, October 26, during which our nephew, Mendy, who is very strong and a trained medical professional, took care of the patient.
That day I got a lot of the winter stuff down from the lockers and loaded aboard, and motored to the Huguenot YC. There, after stripping her headsails and tying them into bundles (that I will transport to the ballroom floor of the Harlem where the sails will be properly folded and then stored in the locker), ILENE was hauled. The professional crew there did a very good job of power washing her bottom, and she was blocked and secured with jack stands. I saw a few spots where I should have applied an additioal coat of bottom paint last spring. They were festooned with barnacles but by scraping them off on the spot, before they calcified, I saved a lot of time next year. Thanks to Dave, who sails with the Salts and lives by the Huguenot, who drove me back to the Harlem where my car was.
It is a good thing I got hauled on the 26th, during which almost zero wind made stripping the headsails easy. A Noreaster blew through on the 27th, blowing

the water into LI Sound and preventing the tide from going out. The water submerged the Harlem's dock!