October 3-16 -- Fifth and Sixth Weeks after the Cruise

Five sail days of the fourteen, though one was for only an hour, during the longest day related to boating. That Saturday began at the Club at 9 a.m. for the Harlem's annual Fall Work Party. But work did not get underway until after coffee and bagels at, about ten. I attached myself to PC Bobby. Our team's primary job was attaching sheets of plastic, which Bobby had obtained and cut to size, around the dozen tall wooden columns that are at the second floor level of the Clubhouse and seem to hold up the its third floor. I remember scrapeing and painting the columns, a huge job, but that was maybe fifteen years ago and again they looked like hell.

This time the plastic was wrapped around, held in place temporarily with straps while the seam was caulked and then also held firmly with nails every three inches. After the tradional free lunch, we completed our team's second project for the day. This was creating racks for the oars of the Fordham women's crew team which practices from off our docks and gets off to their studies by 9 am, before most of us get to the Club. And they pay a good rental for the privilege.  There were concrete pilings on the north side of the house, where no one goes or sees. They hold up the air conditioning units. We placed two by fours against the concrete pilings by drilling holes in the wood and  placing threaded rods with washers and nuts on both ends through the holes which compressed the wood against the pilings.

1. I should have taken a picture of the racks but here is one of larger team installing the diagonal supports so the rails of the dock do not get blown away in the next hurricane. And the good looking columns make the gutters above them look like they need to be painted, come spring.

After the work ended I accepted Rhoda's invitation for a sail aboard "Jazz Sail". We only had an hour underway but it was great to be out on the water, with good wind. We used only the genoa. Next, back to back, was a lecture on how we must wash and scrape our boats' bottoms to comply with the environmental rules followed by a Club membership meeting. A very constructive meeting, without rancor. The Club is getting by financially, holding its own,  and bylaw changes were read reorganizing the duties of several board members as was the nominating committee's slate for 2019. Peter, a very hard worker is moving up to the Rear Commodore slot and one of the new trustees will be Claire, a frequent old Salt. The acrimony that existed during my early years at the club have receeded, almost out of memory; I need no longer bring along WD40 to spray upon the roiled waters.
The final event of the day (I told you it was a long one) was Octoberfest, featuring a profusion of German foods. Our Caterer, Anne, did a great job, but I have to say it was not as good as Mom used to make. I seated myself with Claire, Ginny and Ginny's friend John. I was home by 10, fourteen hours after I had left.
The day sails:
1) The Wednesday before the work party, the Old Salts sailed: seven folks on ILENE and five more on Dave's boat, "Lady Cat". Dave invites strangers who want a free ride with the hope that some of them will want to become members. When we got back to the moorings after about 2.5 hours tho,se wi)h other committments had to leave, and there were nine folks on ILENE for refreshments. I missed the next outing with this group caused my a stiff neck that laid me up for a few days with muscle relaxants.

2) I enjoyed sailing with Alison, Patrick and their younger son, Ian.

They belong to my Congregation and I tried to do this in the spring of 2017, only to embarrass myself by running over the pickup stick and needing to replace the bridle. No such problems this time. We were underway for 5.5 hours with light westerly winds to start and it got us to six knots over ground. Ian has a keen interest in airplanes so we headed west, tacking under the two bridges. I made a long detour south, to sail in waters where I had never been before: The channel past the east side of Rikers and LaGuardia all the way in to CitiField, home of the Mets.

This was to honor Ian's keen interest in airplanes and my interest in going into new places. It is hard for me to imagine that I have been sailing these waters for over 25 years but never into this long wide channel. Retracing our track north, out of that channel, we continued west to The Brothers Islands, the northern one of which held the still visible ruined sanitorium where Typhoid Mary was confined over a hundred years ago. We broad reached back from the Bothers as the wind got lighter and lighter. Having a bit more time, we went through the channel off Kings Point before turning to port, around Stepping Stones Light to the mooring. At this time it was slack tide and the wind was zero. We lost steerage because we had no way on through the water for the rudder to bite. At that moment another result of my stupidity occurred. I had not filled the fuel tank since Portsmouth, New Hampshire and we ran out. I heard the engine sputtering and shut it off before it finally stopped, thereby avoiding the need to bleed the system. We had two gallons of diesel in the jerry can which proved more than enough to get us the two miles back to the mooring.
The next day I worked for about 2.5 hours on the boat: looking for and finding things to take home, cleaning, especially in the aft head (Lene had closed but not dogged down the ports in that head and during heavy rains water had seeped in), checking out the watermaker so I can service it next time, and pouring four more gallons of diesel into her tank that I bought at a shoreside gas station on my way. It made my neck worse.

3)A day sail with Bruce, Lene's acting teacher, his wife, Valerie, and gheir two sons, Gabe, age 7, and  Sam, twelve. Four hours making grooves and the wind picked up so they got to see what six knots felt like. Val grew up on the Chesapeake and was a good helmsperson. The rest of them had never sailed with us and little Gabe was an avid learner: He started sitting on a cushion on my lap but ended standing astride the helmsman's seat, where he could see where he was going. They had won the outing in an auction for the benefit of WEDREPCO, Lene's theater company. Gabe, himself an aspiring actor, learned his lines and called the launch to request our pickup.

4) I also sailed for four hours with Fred of our Coop. He had sailed with me in September 2017 and belongs to a sailing club that uses J-24s from a marina in the Hudson at the World Trade Center. About four hours out to near Mamaroneck and back, passing on both sides of Execution Rocks and through the channel off Great Neck's King's Point. A problem when a sudden wind shift occurred as we were rounding The Blauses, with the big genoa that takes time to tack. We were close to being blown onto the rocks but we used the engine for about one minute to avoid the problem. Again the wind got stronger as the day wore on and when it was time to beat back, we used the small jib and still achieved six knots.
Hauling to occur soon.
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