2022 “Fun Season” Wrapup and a Bonus

First the bonus: a second sail on Lennie’s wooden gaff rigged sloop, “Kocha” with his friend Hal, on November 2! November is normally characterized by raw cold damp weather, but we enjoyed sunshine at near 70 degrees; I should call it a blessing rather than a bonus!  The only drawback: no wind as can be seen behind Hal. The 5 to ten predicted were only five and when we got out of Mamaroneck  Harbor it died completely. But a lovely float with follow boaters who talked about their boats and their adventures.

THE WRAPUP

The perennial question I ask is: How much sailing did we get in this summer? And while the answer is always “Not Enough”, this summer it was less than usual. The fun season is defined as the period from launch date to haul date inclusive. This year with launch on May 5 and hauling on September 8 the fun season was only 145 days long. The fact that three sail dates, on two different friends’ wooden boats (including the bonus) occurred after the haul date, just sweetened the pot a bit. 

A late launch this year because I thought why rush, we will have plenty of time on the Canadian cruise, except it got cancelled, shortened the season. An early haul out because the winter storage site had to get all boats out of the water early to perform a dredging operation before spring cut off the end of the season. And a cruise ship adventure in the Arctic waters of the Svarlbard Archipelago in June and a Covid attack and relapse in July took a big bite out the middle of the season. The best way to rack up large numbers of sailing (and live-aboard while cruising) days is by cruising. This year all told I had four excursions that qualified: a day that begins and/or ends at a location away from Eastchester Bay.  But all four cruises were short ones:  the one-day one-way passage to Fairfield CT on Saltatempo, the solo two day excursion to Rye Playland with folks on boats of the City Island YC,  and two other short cruises, mostly in Long Island Sound: the first - the eight days with “Gypsy Jake” to Hamburg Cove, and the second, eleven days without any other boats to Block Island.  All four of these cruises aggregated only 22 cruising days, far less than in summers with cruises lasting months. A few other  weeks when we would have racked up some days living aboard with the kittys were scrubbed due to the extraordinarily brutal heat this summer.

The first bottom line is that there were only 67 boating related days this summer, a woefully low percentage of use. But I put in thirteen mid-season work days on the boat at our mooring — no sailing and no living aboard. And there was one water related museum day with Winslow Homer at The Met, another serving as the Committee boat for Club racing and a third living aboard at the mooring without sailing. These aggregate 16 and when subtracted, leave only 52 actual sailing days. So in addition to the 22 cruising days I had only 30 day-trip sails. Ten of those 30 were with the Old Salts (eight of them on ILENE and two aboard “Ohana”. So there were 20 non-Salts day sails.

And of the 52 sailing days only 41 were aboard ILENE. The other eleven were on five other friends’ boats, as a guest. Four were with Bennett on Ohana, three with Andrew on Saltatempo, two with Lennie on a Kocka and one each with Dave on Lady Kat and with David on Hidden Hand. So ILENE got underway only 41 times this summer, 39 actually with the two lay days in Block Island knocked off the total.

There were about twenty five different people who sailed with me on ILENE as Salts, some of who also sailed with me on non-Salt days as well. My beloved mate, Lene was on the two longer cruises — 19 days — and five other days with me and various friends, so only 24 days for her all summer. She sailed with me and nine of her friends, two of them, Tom and Marie, twice. And I sailed ILENE four times with no Salts and without my mate, with eight other friends. So altogether a whole lot of folks, but no record.

And for the record, according to ILENE’s GPS computer, her 39 days took us only 682 nautical miles and put only 70 hours on the Yanmar, though about eight of those hours were in neutral, on the mooring, to charge her refrigeration. So only about 27.5 NM  per outing.

A short sweet season. Also, as of October 29, ILENE is fully protected against the winter’s cold and winds. Nothing to do except a whole lot of repairs during which shore power will keep her batteries charged. And next year a summer cruise to Newfoundland for three or four months is promised.

I really have to stop crying in my beer. I’m extremely grateful to have a seaworthy boat, a mate who likes to accompany me, good health and the time, after retirement, to sail. Thank you, God!

October 20 - 22 — Two Work Days with a Great Final Passage In the Middle

 The work days were for applying acid to remove the above waterline biological growth, hosing it away, washing down the topside and installing the winter canvas cover. That last task is getting more difficult and dangerous each year. The danger consists of the risk of my falling twenty feet to the ground as I stand on the very top of the ladder —  the step with the instruction”DON’T STAND HERE” —  and hanging off the sides of the boat struggling with zippers. Next year I will hire some help. But the job is done save for a few more lines to be tied from side to side under the hull and the fastening of anti-chafe materials to prevent the hard spots of the boat from wearing through the 23 year old canvas.

The passage was another great outing on Andrew’s 1926 wooden Herreschoff S2 sloop Saltatempo, my third of the season. (All photo credits to Andrew).

It was a long day of travel starting when Andrew picked me up at 7 am and ending when I got home at 10:30 pm. 

The only tricky parts of the voyage were at the beginning and end. When the mainsail is furled and covered, as it was most of the way, the helmsperson, me in the photo, is seated on the starboard side with a view of the compass, but he cannot see what is to port without standing up. It was high tide, Saltatempo draws only 4.5 feet and Andrew directed me to sail through the comparatively deep spot on the “wrong” side of The Blauses, i.e., between those rocks to port and Hart Island to starboard. I have never gone that shallow way before and will never go that way again! And I did not actually see what was happening but Andrew gave good instructions while reading from his iPhone screen chart.

At the other end of the day, we had been directed to tie up bow in, port side to pier “Yellow 25”. No other explanation. What we later found out, after blind luck got us onto the correct dock, the only unoccupied one we saw, was that the section of docks we were on had their numbers marked in yellow paint rather than paint of a different color. But while it was not pitch black when we got on the dock at 6:45 pm, it was too dark to distinguish the colors. 

The computer says we traversed 34.43 miles at an average speed of 3.3 knots. This speed over ground graph shows a slight rise from just above 3 to almost 4 in the middle, which represents the increase and then decrease in the favorable tides current.

If I could walk on water, I could have walked faster, but not for 10.5 hours, non stop. Another great post season sail, definitely my last for the season. I’m pleased to report that in the following two days, Andrew made it safely to his destination. Our destination for the first of the three days, as shown on the computer chart below, was the Cedar Marina in the NE corner of Black Rock Creek in Fairfield CT.

My next post will quantify the 2022 season.

A Poem About Sailing On Eastchester Bay

 This poem was written by my friend, Jim Porter, the master of his canoe sterned Ocean Voyager 26, “Aria” on the occasion of the retirement from sailing of Selwyn and Evie, whose Tartan 31, “Evie F” also graced the Harlem YC mooring field. I’m guessing that the poem was written about 15 years ago, but the feelings of euphoria, fear and boredom experienced when solo sailing in our home waters are universal and as true today as they were back then. He has captured, with rhyme and meter both the big wind days at both ends of each season and the hot calm days of mid summer. Though the author was generous in sharing his boat with others, he gave her the name “Aria” in recognition that he would be sailing solo frequently. Selwyn, a mentor to me, has long gone on to Fiddler’s Green, the mythic final resting place for sailors, but Evie lives in California and Jim in New Jersey. Jim wrote this poem as a song but the music has gotten lost.

                                                                Aria’s Aria

                              (Have You Ever Sailed On Eastchester Bay?)

                                                                                                           James D Porter, Jr.

                              Have You Ever sailed on Eastchester Bay?

                             When the white caps are out and the rigging is strumming?

                              Have you tried to put your Staysail away?

                              When the fore deck is heeling and the hull is a’ humming?

                               Without hand at the tiller, she finds her own way

                               And heads for Throgs Neck with magnetic attraction.

                               Flying to windward, it‘s the gusts she obeys,

                               As she reaches a speed of five knots and a fraction.

                                On Eastchester Bay that’s a regular day

                                In September, October and sometimes in May.

                                Have you ever sailed on Eastchester Bay

                                Praying for breezes in the heat of midday

                                While the sun bakes your brains out

                                And it’s airless and calm? Yes,

                                It’s hotter than sin at the Ledge and Big Tom.

                               On Eastchester Bay, that’s a regular day

                               In July, June and August, but rarely in May.

                              We’re Eastchester sailors accustomed to this.

                              And we’re crazy enough to think it is bliss.

                               So let’s drink to the Bay and the Ledge and the Rocks,

                               To the waves, and the wind and the clouds in great flocks,

                               To our boats, and our friends and to those whom we miss.

                               We’ll keep sailing on Eastchester Bay…

                               Yes…

                               We’ll keep sailing on Eastchester Bay.

                                                                                    (for Selwyn and Eve Feinstein,

                                                                                    Harlem Yacht Club sailors)

                                

October 13-16 — Propylene Glycol Is In and GOC Was Celebrated

 

 During two work days on which other tasks were performed as well, the antifreeze was used to expel salt water and fresh water from all of ILENE’s systems that had them. On the first day I get set up, gaining access to all the places where funnels into which the propylene glycol could be poured and inserting funnels and hoses. Thus the boat was rather thoroughly torn apart. Next day my friend and book group member, David, helped me accomplish the task. We drove out to the Huguenot, where both of our boats are hauled but not close to each other. One  at a time, we turned on the three pumps involved while either he poured while I watched or I poured while he watched. The watching is for the propylene  glycol, which is pink, to come out at the end of the line, meaning the hose and its attachments are completely filled with p.g. Hot and cold, three sinks and three shower heads, the deck wash pump, the water maker’s filter and most importantly, the Diesel engine. Then, while David did other things on “Hidden Hand” I put everything back together again aboard ILENE. A pleasant day, punctuated by lunch at the Harlem, for me to use up my remaining “chits” (mandatory dining expenditure) during a visit to City Island where David got some things he needed from his locker at the City Island YC.

Saturday night at five PM, on a weekend selected for when the tide is high at that time of day, was the Harlem Yacht Club’s 139th annual Going Out of Commission ceremony, marking the formal end of the sailing season. It and GIC are the only two times we wear coats and ties. Each GOC is rather like the last but changes do trickle in  slowly. This year the National Anthem and Taps for lowering the American Flag were played by a team of two women (on trumpet and keyboard) who later played inside during the post ceremonial libation.  Sadly our Commodore and his wife could not be present; she has Covid, no longer usually fatal but a nuisance.

One change, that did not work, was the erection of a big plastic tent over the porch.
Apparently  intended to protect us in case of cold or inclement weather, it’s effect was to block the folks locked behind it from hearing the speeches. I recall a time, many of my 30 years at the Club ago, when the heavens opened up torrentially during the brief ceremony. All of us retreated to the upstairs ballroom to observe the lowering of the eight flags through the windows while the chief launch operator, clad in follies and directed via a portable VHF radio, lowered all the flags in their proper order. Past Commodores saluting:

I did not “catch the moment”, but smoke from the firing of the ceremonial cannon is still visible behind the tan coat of the official photographer:

And here are the eight flags, lowered but not yet folded, at the base of the flagpole:

What I should have shot were pictures of the huge spreads of delicious foods both at buffet tables and with a never ending stream of passed hors d’oeuvres. I guess it started shortly before 6 and at at about 7:30 the main course buffet started. All delicious. We left at about 8, before the deserts came out.  I guess I’m an over eater and a party pooper. The dancing was just starting. Our caterer, Anne, did herself proud.

October 12— Sailing KOCKA, Pronounced Coochi, Russian for Little Pussy Cat

 

An apt name for a catboat. (Actually, in a sense, ILENE qualifies as a catboat if you consider her crew consists of two pussycats.) The huge rudder is a characteristic of catboats and I believe I had never sailed one before. The other characteristics are a single mast well forward, a wide beam and a shallow draft. Another characteristic but not necessity for a catboat is a gaff rig, which Kocha has.

Thanks to Len for inviting me and his friend Chuck to sail on his boat. Though my “fun season” technically ended upon hauling, postseason sails have a special sweetness. Len belongs to my congregation and more than six years ago I sailed on his 1938 wooden sloop “Mary Loring”, a brilliantly fast boat, as he expertly sailed her, heated with a coal burning stove. Wooden boats are such high maintenance projects that I would have thought that after he sold Mary Loring Len would not have bought another wooden boat. But he is a sailing purist and loves the challenge both of maintaining a wooden boat and sailing an “old fashioned” boat that is more demanding in its sailing. After he had sold and been paid for Mary Loring, her new owner lost her. By failing to follow Len’s  advice about the need to have a full battery to power the bilge pump to excrete the water that continuously slowly leaks into such boats in small quantities, her new owner permitted her to sink; she has been lost forever. RIP Mary Loring.

Len keeps Kocha, built in 1955, on fore and aft moorings in the mooring field of the Orienta YC in Mamaroneck Harbor, where Mary Loring used to ride. Kocha is a lot younger than Mary Loring but like her has a coal burning stove, it’s chimney, the brown object rising under the booms. Yes, booms, plural, because Kotcha is gaff rigged, the top of its main sail attached to a gaff boom, as shown below.

The two small bronze winches shown on the starboard coach roof, to the right of the figure seated in the cockpit, who is Len, are for hauling up the main sail. One halyard positions the front of the gaff boom against the mast and the other the weight of it, it’s angle. Their adjustment is how the sail is shaped. All sheets and halyards are terminated on wooden cleats. Here is the quadrilateral main:

Kocha is a demanding boat to sail. The main must always be raised and lowered on port tack to keep the gaff boom from getting snagged in the sail, and the jib, which has a boom at its foot must always be raised and lowered on starboard tack. All the brightwork sparkles!

Len has mastered her intricacies and felt the need to do a lot of the sail handling himself, the first time, as a teacher,  but he was generous in permitting his crew the helm during our four hours underway. In winds from a bit west of south that started at only five knots but built to fifteen, we closed Long Island, perhaps a quarter mile west of Matinecock Point, returned and then went half way back again before returning, dropping sails and motoring through the harbor. Kocha has a very reliable old one cylinder Yanmar, which can push her slowly along. Her centerboard was swung down throughout, giving Kocha a five foot draft rather than only 2.5 which she would have if the board were swung up.

A lovely sail. Below are Len on starboard and Chuck (who keeps his 33 foot Caliber at the Orienta)  beside Kocha’s relatively small wheel. I’m used to sitting behind the wheel so it took a bit of reorientation. Len has sailed in the mouth of Mamaroneck Harbor so long that he knows where the rocks are and how far outside of the channel he can go without GPS or charts. I was happy to trust my life to his skills, though in October The Sound’s waters are still warm.

Thanks Len!

September 29 - October 11— Three Work Days, The Contaminated Tank Fixed — Almost

    About two or three years ago I accidentally contaminated the larger of our two new aluminum fuel tanks, the more forward one, which is larger. Yes, again, I put the water hose in the fuel tank!!! I knew that not a lot of water got in but I did not know how much. Turns out it was probably only about a cup of water,  because I realized that I was an idiot and yanked that water feed hose out of the diesel deck fill. But because water is heavier than diesel it will tend to lay on the bottom of the tank and be sucked up first. It will overpower the filters and shut off the engine. And what can go wrong will go wrong so such an incident is likely to happen at the most inconvenient time, like when no sail is up and we are in a narrow passage with strong current and wind. So since my idiocy, we have simply not used the larger of the two fuel tanks. 

During this summer when we needed fuel I used the battery operated liquid transfer pump that I inserted into the green plastic capped hole to pull diesel fuel out of the contaminated tank into an empty clear plastic one gallon water bottle. Diesel is pink and water is uhm, water colored, so I looked to see if there was water  in the bottom of the bottle, and finding none, used a second safety check by pouring the diesel through a Baha filtered funnel into the green plastic covered fill hole of the “good” aft tank. I don’t know how it works, but the Baha filter lets through diesel but blocks water. I did this about thirty times.

By the end of summer the remaining fluid in the “bad” tank was so shallow that the pump did not draw fluid  up but sucked air. It turns out that just a little more than a gallon of fluid was left, but it contained the water, and a lot of aluminum filings and slivers.

As soon as we got hauled on solid ground, with no rocking, it was time to try to get that tank bone dry. This  involved removing the twelve nuts that hold the gasketed viewing port plate to the top of the tank. The plate is about 8 inches square. Then I was able to use what are called diesel diapers to mop up the gallon. Those white wipes absorb diesel but not water. Taking a wad of them in my rubber gloved hand and dipping it into the tank I pulled it up sopping wet and pink and squeezed the diesel into a five gallon bucket. After many such handfuls, the tank was dry, at least on the side where the viewing port is located. 

But the tank is baffled; it has an aluminum plate welded to its sides, with a semicircular opening at the bottom. This plate almost divides the tank in two, but permits the fluid to flow from back and forth between the halves of the tank, but slowly so that its weight does not bounce the boat around. And as the tank’s bottom is slightly lower on the other side of the viewing port, the last bit was on the “wrong” side of the baffle. So I had to invent a tool, well it is not that original: a mop. I had an 18” length of 5/8” dowel which I had inscribed on both sides with the depths of the two tanks to use as a dip stick fuel gauge. Wrapping the diesel wipes around one one and securing them very tightly with a hose clamp, I had my mop. With elbow at the bottom of the tank, my forearm reached the hole in the baffle and the mop, repeatedly inserted through that hole into the deeper end of the tank, flopped around and withdrawn, pulled out the remaining fluids out, to be squeezed into the five gallon bucket. 

The tank is dry, awaiting to be filled with 40 gallons of diesel next spring. But the job is not quite done, just “almost”.  The remaining problem, which I believe is solved, but not implemented, is the three missing nuts in the photo. They are not missing in the sense of lost, but I have not been able to catch the top thread of the bolts (which can be seen in the photo). The bolts pass through rubber strips both above and below the top of the tank — so they don’t fall to the bottom of the tank. But how to raise them to catch the nuts onto them. The sleepless night ended with another tool. A simple “L” shaped “angle iron”. If inserted through the green plug, I’m thinking I can use the horizontal part of the “L” to push the bolts up from inside the tank. I will keep you informed. 

September 28 — HAULED; Start Of The Work Season

And early hauling date this year because the Huguenot Yacht Club is dredging the area of its docks and thus requires all boats and the docks themselves to be removed from the water. A huge investment by that Club.

It was a very long day for me. I got to the boat at 10:30 AM and the first thing I did was strip the Genoa from its furler to the deck, tie it down so it wouldn’t blow away during the passage to the Huguenot and set the dock lines and fenders to port, anticipating a port side tie up. This was done first because the winds were predicted to build during the day making sail removal more difficult. The passage took one hour for the 5 miles and was totally by motor. Upon arrival there was no help from dock hands but I saw a long stretch of facing dock that was open, slid very close to it so as not to be blown off by the north winds, gave the boat one second of reverse to stop her forward motion, jumped onto the dock and made the spring line fast to the dock.  Thereafter I tied the bow and stern lines and adjusted them so that the forward portion of the boat was right up against the dock with the stern sticking out a ways at an an angle. This permitted me to safely lift the Genoa over the lifelines and drop it onto the dock, very roughly fold it up into a dock cart and take it to  shore. The yardmen told me I had time so I took an Uber back to the Harlem, drove my car to the Huguenot, loaded the Genoa into it, drove to Doyle Sails on City Island and deposited it there for winter maintenance and cleaning. Back to the Huguenot, and repeated the process for the small jib, getting it into the car before the hauling. This picture shows what I’ve tried to show:

The lowest red line is the dock space where I tied ILENE. The one to the right is the bridge to Glen island, but I came in from the west, the left

side of the photo. The central red line is the travel lift and the top, left red line is where ILENE is now sitting for the winter. All the boats shown in the bottom half of the photo and the docks they are tied to will have to be hauled out to permit the dredging. That operation is a huge capital infrastructure improvement for the Hueguenot.

Orlando, the experienced yard man who has been at the Huguenot since at least 2007, has a new assistant who is quite friendly and cheerful but he’s not much of a help because he’s still pretty green and  learning the ways of boat hauling. They removed the head stays and I drove the boat from the dock where I had her tied to the travel lift where they lifted it out of the water. One mistake was misalignment of the forward strap so that the furling drum of the Genoa was pressed between the strap and the boat. I expected damage but somehow that was avoided.  

Then comes the power washing and the bottom  was much more filthy that I have ever seen her, loaded with seaweed. I have thought about why this was so and come up with three reasons. First, this was an unusually hot summer and heat stimulates marine growth. Second,  we did not sail as much this summer as in prior years and I my theory is that leaving the boat stationary further permits growth of seaweed. And finally, to my fault, I did not have the bottom scrubbed by Barnackle Busters as often as I should have.  In any event it took a long time for the yard men to get all that growth off the bottom of the boat. 

In the end, it got late and after blocking to remove the furler drum from under the strap they left ILENE in the slings and did not move it to her winter spot until the next day, in my absence. I left, drove back to City Island again, and gave the small head sail to Doyle just before their 6:30 closing. A long day.

Sept 18 -27 —— The Last Old Salts Outing Of The 2022 Season and Two Work Days

 I am very far behind in my blogging but will catch up soon. 

This was my tenth Old Salts sail of 2022, the eighth aboard ILENE (the other two on “Ohana”). A pleasant easy afternoon, and, as it turned out, her last sail of the season, unless you count her passage to the Hueguenot to be hauled. Other Salts continued to sail on other boats on Wedsesday afternoons later in the season.

The two work days wore traditional after the last cruise of the season. Well the first of them is a necessity after every cruise: clean up and take home stuff forgotten the day before. Living aboard, even for only eleven days, gets the boat dirty.  

The other work day was devoted to putting the dink to bed. Actually, I’ve only brought the dink to the floating dock, waiting for a day when I’m there at high tide to pull it to the seawall and haul it up onto the sea wall for our volunteer yard crew to take it, via fork lift, to the rack and lift it up to its storage place for the winter. 

The hardest part of this operation is removing its outboard (after detaching the fuel tank and  running the fuel out of it) from dink to land. The outboard seems to get heavier each year. Chief Launch Operator David helped me with this hardest part— lifting the outboard from the transom of the floating dink to the adjacent dock. This particular part of the operation absolutely requires a second person. One person has to hold a line tied around it so it can be rettieved from the briny depths if dropped. I’ve not dropped it yet but, like I say, it keeps getting heavier and it is an awkward move from kneeling in the rocking dink, lifting the engine to chest hight and swinging it to the side — to land. And then David also helped me lift it to a dock cart to pull it to the locker house. Again, higher tide helps because then the ramp from floating dock up to fixed dock is not as steep. 

And then our Commodore helped me carry it up the flight of stairs to its winter home in the locker house. I could have done this part by myself, but help certainly made it easier. I told him that he was working way below his pay grade, a joke because all of our officers are unpaid volunteers and he was unpaid for helping me. Our officers and trustees are truly “trusted servants” rather than authority figures. I’m very grateful to both of my helpers. I have so mush to be thankful for.