The work days were all related to winterization which is complete except for padding the hard points under the canvas cover to prevent them from chaffing through and putting back together the things that were torn apart inside the cabin to gain access for the winterization.
Twenty three and a half hours of work by me plus 1.5 hours of work by JP of Headsync, who helped me winterize the Spectra Ventura watermaker, 1.5 hours by Ed Spallina helping me get the last few systems winterized (during which I learned that I need a longer, i.e., taller, hose through which to pour the pink stuff through the engine) and 5.5 hours of Mendy's help it lifting the headsails to the locker, taking the main to Doyle Sails for repairs and putting on the winter cover. Total man hours so far this fall: 32.
This was the eleventh time I have installed the canvas cover, but the first time I did it during strong winds from deep on the port quarter. Wrestling the big sheets of ungainly stiff canvas in the wind gave me a wee taste of the much more difficult and dangerous was work of the iron men who manned the old square rigged wooden ships, They did it in the rain and snow while hanging off the spars of boats that were picthing and rolling in storms while at sea! But after perhaps four hours of preparation in taking out the stanchions and lifelines and positioning and attaching the whisker pole forward and the wooden poles aft, and snuging the halyards around the mast and shrouds so they would n0ot slap against t hem all winter, Mendy and I did it, with only one false start (with the aft section of the cover backwards) we got it done in near record time and without breaking zippers, or, more importantly: falling off the boat. I also took off the cockpit table and two pieces of molding at the top of the port side of the companionway which had been weathered and need to be sanded and repolyurethaned this winter,mwith more woodwork to come.
I had a nice lunch one day at the Club which finished up my chits. I only need to spend $600 per year in the restaurant, but being away for ten weeks meant I had a bit left to be spent. I visited with two parties were being catered, one celebrating the retirement of a local man and the other a commemmeration of a person who had died twenty years ago. A third such group was not catered but a la carte. A group of black power boaters who had out a chart kit on the table. They were palaning a cruise to Block Island for next summer. I could not help them with their question: "Which is the best marina?" having never stayed at any of them, but provised distance and taught them to look up the tide at the race. That was fun.
I had a theater date with Bennett and Harriet; Lene would have been there too except for her broken bones which are mending quite well, thank you. A Club membership meeting was a pleasure, even though I had to leave a bit early. The Officers and Board members presented their reports with well deserved self satisfied glee. Both financially and physically, things are looking up at the Club, due our leaders' countless hours of volunteer hard work over the years.
I attended a presentation by a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center on a new book he had written about the New York City waterfront during the past 410 years. How deep water to the edge of land gave New York an advantage over other cities. How the water rights were given by the city to private persons who built the first docks, wjhich were later landfilled and bought back by the City. How the cooperation of four ship owners created Black Ball Lines, the first packet shipping company, which could never guarantee arrival times but did guarantee a departure from New york to Liverpool on a fixed date each month. How the corruption of the waterfront shapeup system worked against the longshoremen (with a plug for the Brando-Kazan-Bernstein-Malden and Eva Marie Saint film "On the Waterfront" -- which I watched for the first time the next day). How containerization severely curtailed the corruption but required the relocation of longshoreing to New Jersey which had land available for the trailers. And how public-private financing is developing the waterfront today with parks for the people balanced against privileges for the wealthy. Very informative.
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