Only one 3.5 hour work day (on ILENE's forward diesel fuel tank) during this period.
* A meeting of the New York Map Society. The speaker was a professor of History from the U of Va. He had developed some compelling dynamic computer tricks for zooming in on details of historical maps. His topic was the twenty years ending in 1776 and how the British, after winning the French and Indian War (in which George Washington first distinguished himself as a capable military commander, working with the British against the French and the Indians) set up a line running down the backbone of the Appalachians, with the intent of limiting white settler expansion to area from that line to the Atlantic. The line was not well surveyed or obeyed and the American settlers resented the British effort to constrain their expansion, leading to our revolution in 1776. The best part of the show, and I had no expectation of its content, was slide show was the charts of Atlantic and Caribbean waters, from Nova Scotia to Domenica -- all of which I have sailed. When views came up of the Maine coast, for example, before they even clarified, I recognized my sailing areas. I learned that Maine, located between New England and New Scotland i.e. Nova Scotia, was originally called New Ireland by the Brits.
* Dinner and theater with Bennett and Harriet.
* Dinner with Sheila who has been an repeat overnight guest on ILENE, at her house. Good food but the purpose was to cut her cat's claws. I wore full heavy winter coat, heavy gloves and glasses to protect myself against scratching and biting while I held Pip for Lene to do the cutting. But little Pip was too strong for me and sprang, twisting out of my arms, biting through the tip of the glove, fortunately not the finger. Its not often that I abandon a mission but this was one of them.
* Lene and I and nephew Mendy had dinner with John, who had come up from Maryland's Eastern Shore and was staying with Don and Christine up in Washington Heights. Both former Harlemites and good sailors. Both guys have helped me a lot. I invited them to be among ILENE's crew this fall when we sail her to Tortola. There: I've said it; now it is a "mission" with a lot to get done between now and then. Did I mention, I don't like to abandon missions.
*Another theater date with Bennett and Harriett. Bennett is another Harlemite crew invitee. The reason for the theater dates being so close is adjournments while Lene was healing from her broken bones. The show is a new musical, "Superhero", at the Second Stage Theater. We go to a lot of theater and think this show is great. It was still in previews but I think it will be around for a long time. The star plays a student who is working on his own comic book, staring a superhero he named "Sea Mariner". How can it be bad?
* Another Harlemite, Roy, invited me to a dinner at the New York Yacht Club. This is a very upscale club with a long history of winning America's Cup races and with its clubhouses in Newport, Rhode Island and in midtown Manhattan. Ties required. I rubbed shoulders with some powerful people. The food and wine was exquisite. The speakers were a bit over my head, though I did get the jist of their presentation. As I see it, they have done for sailboat racing what Billy Beane did for baseball as described in the book and movie "Moneyball." In the baseball story, the hero used his mind and some computer skills on behalf of the KC Royals to overcome the vast financial advantage that the big, well bankrolled teams had in buying superior players by discovering new types of statistics to assess the strengths of baseball players overlooked by the others. Not just hits and homers, but more unique statistics such as slugging percentage and on base percentage.
The sailing analogy I make does not involve overcoming a financial deficit because none of the contenders in that game lack vast wealth. The speakers fed both historical weather reports and near term weather forecasts published by our government into computers to optimize the best route for a racing sailboat -- and won, taking significant time off the record for the cross Atlantic passage.
Interesting, but not really the kind of sailing we do.
*A documentary movie was shown a quarter mile from out house called "One Million American Dreams." If you want to see it in a theater you better rush because documentaries generally do not have long runs and this one does not have a lot of popular "feel good" appeal. It is the story of Hart Island, next to City Island, and particularly its use as a mustering center for Black Union soldiers in our Civil War and, since 1869 as New York's Potters Field, the burial place of one million, and counting, New Yorkers whose families did not claim them for burial. Lene and I were the only people in the theater until about a half a dozen others showed up as a group. I talk with everyone and would have said that we sail around the island often. I asked "Why have you chosen to see this particular movie?" "Because I'm in it!" was the reply of Herbert Sweat, Jr., an activist among Black Viet Nam Veterans. While he was over there, his infant child, born to his 17 year old wife, died. Due to the indifference to the unfortunate and bureaucratic foul-ups which were at the heart of the movie, his child was buried there. He has visited the Island five times by ferry, now that family members were recently permitted to visit, but has never sailed around it; that will be remedied this summer. A mission!
So a rich variety of nautically related experiences during the last ten days.
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