Four work days, two with Ilene’s help and one with Fred, who lives in our building and has sailed with his wife and us. Lene concentrated on the interior and Fred on the exterior topsides. A lot of cleaning still needs to be done. But the inside looks pretty good again after removal of all the winter work supplies. The salon table top looked cruddy but washing, abasing with toothpaste and pledge has restored its luster. My eagle eyes detect that the narrow center panel and the port wing, which are left up most of the time gave developed a very slightly blonder shade of cherry than the starboard wing which is normally closed down in the vertical position and hence gets less sun. Modest amounts of mildew on the overhead this past winter are all gone. I trashed the old reading lights in the Salon and butt connected the wires and mounted the shiny new ones. But there was a fifth light, in the aft cabin, so I took the least tarnished of the old and spent an couple hours applying brass cleaner and elbow grease and then polyurethane, rather than order a fifth fixture.
I purchased two LED “bulbs” to fit the floor lights, as an experiment, to see if they fit. Doctor LED knows his bulbs and the ones he sent, subject to refund, do fit. But at $27 a piece, I will not replace the other four. I got one in red for nearest the companionway. Red light does less harm to night vision than white light. In removing the fixtures to get to the sockets I removed 23 years of accumulated grime from the reflectors behind the bulbs.
That may be the reason, or part of the reason, that the LEDs appear to be brighter than the older bulbs.
It was a thrill to restore the blocks, lines and life sling to their useful exterior positions on ILENE, to get her rigged for summer. For one set of shackles, those holding the blocks for hoisting the dink to the davit bar, installation must be done ashore; in case a piece is dropped by Mr. Butterfingers, it might be found by diligent search in the gravel below rather than being irretrievably swallowed by the seawater and the mud below. No droppage this year.
I’ve used pieces of the vinyl tape normally used to “paint” boats’ names on their sides to hide scratches and peeled spots in the dark blue boot stripe. I asked the BoatUS Boat Name department for scraps of Navy and offered to pay and for shipping, but they sent me a large supply, not scraps, totally free. Sadly one can’t look a gift horse in the mouth and the color is just slightly lighter than desired. If you look carefully you can see the spot:
I worked with Bennett of “Ohana” at our mastheads, using the services of his talented and brave friend Jesse and my new electric winch handle to install wind instruments.
Bennett’s now works fine, but we discovered problems at my masthead, and following a reply by Davis Instruments, a return trip will be required.
The hole at the top of the post into which the instrument should screw seems blocked. I can either drill out the bad parts or buy a new mounting post.
And it’s a long way down!
And the port tank is full of fresh filtered water.
The actual launching on May 3 was uneventful. David, of “Hidden Hand”, helped me. We drove to the Huguenot in my car and after lunch and painting the bottom of the keel he drove my car to the Harlem Yacht Club to wait for me to motor the boat over there. The launching was exactly at 2 PM, as scheduled, at the high tide. But the yard men who have to reinstall ILENE’s forestays before I could leave the dock had to launch another boat while the tide was still high enough, so there was about an hour’s delay. David persuaded me that I did not need to further delay to mount the small jib before departure — that in the unlikely event of engine failure, I could anchor before ILENE went on the rocks and mount the sail while on anchor. But the sail was laying on the foredeck and the wind started to whip it around a bit so I let auto pilot steer for a few seconds, re-folded that sail and secured it to the deck.
At the Harlem end of the short passage, I found my mooring but the pennant had gotten wrapped up in the pickup stick and I had to use the boat dock to catch the pennant and attach it at the midship cleats. Then I ran another line from the pennant to the bow of the boat, released the pennant and tried to pull it to the bow cleat. But the wind was too strong for me to actually physically pull it all the way in. I could hold the line by the friction of the cleat but not pull it in. And then the Cavalry came riding to the rescue: David on the launch. I had negligently failed to check the very early-season hours of operation of the Harlem launch. It was scheduled to operated only until 4 PM and David persuaded our competent and helpful chief launch operator, also named David, to remain a few minutes later to come out and get me. Also, when David came out on the launch he was able to board ILENE, and at my direction put her in forward gear, very briefly and slowly. This relieved the strain on the temporary line so that I could properly attach the mooring pennant to her bow cleat.
David and I plan to return to our boats in a few days to help each other mount our sails. And I already have a sailing date for the weekend. Ilene will be away for a week at a spa in Baja California.
But it has not been all boat work either. I attended both a zoom meeting of the City Island Yacht Club‘s Cruising Committee with which we are cooperating, and a live slide show meeting at that Club by a knowledgable local resident of Norwalk, Connecticut. He described each and every one of the 25 so-called Norwalk Islands (some mere sand bars) where a two-day mini-cruise that CI YC has organized for themselves and Harlemites is scheduled to anchor in June. The speaker also described many famous and not so famous people who have had experiences in the Norwalk area since colonial days.
I’ve also solicited the members of both clubs who may want to take a longer one or two week Joint cruise this summer to attend a Zoom meeting to find out who can go on such a cruise, whether they can all get time off from work the same time and on the proposed itinerary. I plan to offer the eight day cruise that the Harlem did not “use” last summer as a starting plan, subject to the changes any of the participants want and can agree to. The Fleet Captain is not a commander but a volunteer unpaid “trusted (somewhat) servant” whose job title could be “cat herder”. But ILENE cannot actually sail with the group, if such a cruise comes off this summer because we plan to be sailing to Canada.
Learning that a new couple who have joined the Harlem has bought a Catalina sailboat lying in Greenport that has to be brought to City Island, with their permission I solicited all of our members for an experienced sailor who may want to accompany them. If no one accepts the opportunity I may volunteer myself.
Another member wanted to bring a very classy antique Herreshoff ketch from Eastern CT where they bought her to the Harlem in a three day sail and requested my advice on good spots to spend the two intervening nights, which it was my pleasure to give them.
But the most fun of all in this route planning activity was to create the first draft of ILENE’s scheduled itinerary from the Harlem to and in the St John River in New Brunswick, Canada during the period July 5 to August 12. The homebound portion of the cruise, back to the Harlem to arrive around Labor Day, is still entirely unplanned except that I’d like to stop a few days in rugged unspoiled Grand Manan Island, in the Bay of Fundy, and at a port on the western coast of Nova Scotia to meet up with Greg and Wanda, our Scotian friends. Planning cruises is almost as much fun as going on them!
Social life has also continued, including four evenings of theater, one with Bennett and Harriet, dinners with Tom and Marie who are not sailors but love to sail with us, and Bruce and Linda, former Harlem sailors who now belong at the Huguenot and drive a trawler, “J-ERICA”. Bruce taught me a lot about racing back in the early 90’s and sailed ILENE with me and others on her first voyage out of the Chesapeake (to the Harlem) back in 2006.
A highlight of the social scene during this period was the very imaginative, well planned and very tasty “1812 Dinner” at the Harlem. It was conceived by Rear Commodore Doug, planned by social chair Erin and executed by Caterer Anne. It was based on a menu of foods that might have been eaten by Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin of Robert O’Brian’s swashbuckling novels of the Royal Navy during the wars against Napoleon. Those flawed heros would have been very lucky to have had such good food.
Soon my posts will be shorter, more regular and hopefully more interesting, now that sailing season has commenced.
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