Tuesday we had planned to sail with my former coworker, Sid, and Jan, who usually come out once a year. The wind was forecast too strong for a social sail so they were given a wind check and the result was a delicious dinner at their house in New Jersey.
Next day was Old Salts. The usual rigmarole; a very pleasant time on the water for all. Out to the mouth of Little Neck Bay and back: then repeat, but not so far out. On first northbound tack I rolled out ILENE’s big Genoa to give the folks the feel of its power. The tab ring between the jaws of the self trailer in the starboard coachroof broke.
The replacement part is winging its way to me from Defender, based on the part number given to me by Lewmar. Eleven souls, four on “Lady Kat”— most of them joined us après.
Saturday, ILENE served as the committee boat for the race that the Club sponsored. The photo shows the start of the third bivision, big boats with serious racers who elected to start at the pin end of the line, far from a potential collision with ILENE, thank you.It was a long day because Lene took our car up to Massachusetts to visit a friend so I used public transportation. The kitties were home alone for more than twelve hours and eager for their dinner when I got back. I motored to the start line and anchored as directed by Roy and Ellen, expert racers of a J-24 named “Panic Attack”. Assisted by Rose and Tomas, they set the course, ran the race, signaled the starts, recorded the finish times and calculated in the handicaps to determine the winners of each division. About nineteen boats participated divided into three divisions.
They had decided to move the finish line closer to the Club during the race, which meant pulling up the anchor to reset it in the new location. That’s when the problem occurred. The windlass had nicely lowered the anchor and chain, but blew two fuses, one at a time, when asked to retrieve it. The problem is probably rust. But in the moment it required hauling in the chain and anchor by hand. Tomas helped and the job got done. To make it easier at the location of the second anchoring I deployed the port anchor, lighter in weight and with only 20 feet of chain followed by abundant line. In the light winds, this anchor worked well and was easier to retrieve. I had gotten the US flag back from the tailor with a new hem on its “stripes” end, but she put in only one row of stitches so I sewed in an adjacent set, through seven of the 13 stripes. Then Ellen said “Why don’t you let me finish that on my sewing machine at home?” Thank you Ellen!
I also finally did something about the ruined green sheet that controls the small jib. But I noticed that there was more than enough of a tail in the cockpit so I cut off the bad part, which had been chewed up by the blocks, forward, whipped the new forward end and were good as new.
The first signal for the first division was at 11:05 am, and the light winds made for a slow 16 mile round trip with the last boat finishing at 5:02, two minutes after the deadline. Once back on the mooring we went in for the post race party with free food and drink and a terrific rock and roll band. I mentioned serious racers: one team (not from the Harlem) hired and paid a professional racer who had been in the Olympics; they won their division, but this is craziness!
And Monday was a four hour work day before the heat got me tired so I went home. I cleaned fish guts and scales from the starboard deck left behind by messy gulls, stained interior woodwork to cherry, scraped and sanded off all the residues from the mast, wiped it with acetone and spread a bead of silicone that hopefully will stop the leaking through the top of the boat, retrieved the mooring pennant to the deck with the boat hook and slid the fire hose anti chafe sleeve from the far end, by the ball, up to near the eye, where it can do its sacrificial chore and secured it with wire ties, threaded the second reefing line through the mainsail and read the manual for the windlass which convinced me that I need help for that repair job.
A quiet week. It is a good thing that these mechanical problems are happening here at home rather than off Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia.
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