September 30 — October 11– Three Sail Dates, a Funeral And a Full Day At the Club

 The first sail was the last outing of the Salts, five plus me on ILENE and five on Bennett’s Ohana. We used the new time frame, depart at noon, return at five and then dinner at the Club. I got to the boat early and rigged her so that we could cast off the minute the others arrived. We had light air so used the Genoa, with only three furls. The first was when the light wind died completely. The second was near the Whitestone Bridge when we tacked to head home, and only the last was a problem. Between the bridges, we were making six knots, both ways. The last furl was from wing on wing when the Genoa got wrapped around the furled small headsail. I lowered the main, started the Yanmar, put us very slowly on a good course and bulled the big sail right, so it could be furled. About five minutes of physical and nervous energy and all was restored. That has never happened before. Dinner on the porch:

I sailed with Rhoda, Lloyd, their son, Jonathan, and his two sons, aged three and five, for a couple of hours. Again, I got there early to be prepared. But I put in a reef because of the kids — to not scare them. We were underway only two hours, again, for the kids. In the early part of the sail I was regretting the shortened main and small jib, but then the wind came up to 20 knots and I was happy with the sail plan selected. 

The third outing was aboard Ohana with Bennett, Rhoda and Mike and Sandy. All of us are Salts, and this an ad hoc session organized by Bennett with with our normal organizer, Dave, on a cruise ship to Bermuda. Fall temperatures have arrived but it was a lovely blue sky day. We circumnavigated Execution Rocks, clockwise, but on the way back the wind  abated and with adverse tide we were making only 1.8 knots so used the diesel.

The funeral was for our Commodore’s Father in Law, who died at about 90. It took place in St.Mary’s By The Sea Church on City Island, in which I had never before set foot. A lovely church in which the deceased had experienced all of his life cycle events, from baptism to funeral. I was very pleased that I had the morning available to show support for our Commodore who has done such a great  job for our Club these past two seasons and helped me personally for years,

Saturday was a long full day at the Clubhouse. It began before nine with the club providing bagels, coffee, juice and danish for the Fall  “work party”. Outdoor activities could not be done as planned because of the rain so the biggest projects involved white, water soluble latex paint in the ballroom upstairs. The nine big Adirondack chairs were brought up, placed on tarps, very lightly sanded, had their loose boards re-screwed, and given a fresh coat of paint. Paint, it seems to me, has some caulk-like qualities. I would prefer more prep work, but the Club has done things it’s own way for more than 140 years and they work tolerably well.

Also, the ballroom’s window frames, doors and base moldings now gleam more brightly. Next came the very varied, filling, tasty and free buffet lunch served to all of us  worker bees - soup to the nuts in the cookies, wine, beer, coffee. I ate too much. Following lunch was a meeting of the docks committee to decide how to replace existing broken ones. P.C. Mark had done an amazing job of getting bids from a variety of venders using a variety of materials: wood, aluminum and plastic. I thought they were talking about the docks that I need to use to get to my boat — the most essential thing that the Club has. But the issue saw the lighter weight dinghy docks that are parallel to and along the north side of the main dock. A less critical need. Yet replacement will be at a cost of several tens of thousands of dollars. My dink sits on these docks for a few days in the fall and spring but otherwise live on ILENE’s davit bar for the summer and on dinghy racks, ashore, deflated, during the winter. Other folks situate their dinks on these docks for the summer and do not use them. I had no engineering expertise to add to the decision about which vender to use, but asked a less technical question: Why do we need to spend this money and can we charge those of our members who use this dock space (like we do for lockers)? But I t seems that a significant number of the newer members have kayaks and want to keep them on the docks, and that was a persuasive reason for the expense, in my opinion. Next up was the membership meeting in the newly repainted ballroom with good enough attendance and good news about slightly improved membership numbers and finances. A revised point-of-service system for us to use to pay for food and drink was reported as was Nominating Committee’s slate of officers for 2024. The final event (my third meal at the Club that day), at which Lene joined me,  was the Octoberfest Party, after changing out of work clothes. Lots of good German style foods and conversation with old and new friends. We left for home more than twelve hours after I had arrived.