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!