May 6 - 10. -- Summer Is Here; Lene Works Aboard, LAUNCH, Problems Solved, and First Sail!

Yes, the season has begun. Lene worked with me Saturday afternoon. First item was the nuts on the bolts that hold the swim ladder to the swim platform; Lene worked the Phillips head driver from above while I held the wrench on the nut in position impossible, from below. She said hello to both Bruce and Linda, who stopped to chat on their way to m/v J-Erica, and with Tex and Maria who were getting m/v Heaven Sent ready to launch. I filled the starboard fresh water tank, replaced the hot water bypass and reconnected the hoses to the hot water heater, cleaned the filter at the fresh water pump and purged the antifreeze from the system at all twelve outlets. Lene wiped the ceilings with Clorox to prevent mildew, I put away a zillion things and we called it a day.

Launch this year was ten days earlier than last year, but that, I believe, was largely due to my week in the Hospital for gastrointestinal problems last year.

ILENE is in the slings, rolling aft toward the water. Here the two headstays are dangling by her side, the white diagonal lines passing through the first "U" in the word "Huguenot", and by the blue horizontal fender just below the top of the freeboard. The blue spinnaker halyard slopes down to a cleat on the foredeck, barely visible, providing resistance against the mast falling over backwards.
High tide was at 11 but they had other boats, albeit ones with shallower drafts, and let me wait until noon. The engine came on at the first flick of the key, with a warm gratifying purr. There was no room at the dock immediately outside the lift and I steered in reverse and then forward to another facing dock, and without hitting anyone! Once tied up I turned off the engine and waited another hour for the yard men to reattach my headstays and lift the folded Genoa from the dock to the deck. Again I puttered about waiting and then turned on the engine, preparing to cast off and motor to City Island where I planned to mount the headsails and then to find a way back to New Rochelle by land, to pick up our car, which now was loaded with winter stuff: tarp, ladder, heater, electric polishers, antifreeze, etc. to be loaded into our locker at the Harlem.

Not so fast young man!  Engine purred on easily, but 30 seconds later it sputtered and died.

But before working on the engine, another more immediate problem presented: I'm hearing the bilge pump. I'm actually hearing the aft grey water sump pump cycling. The bilge pump is completely submerged, and the water in the bilge is muffling its sound. Where is the water coming from!!? Well it is flowing forward so the problem must be aft. Removing the ladder that covers the engine, the culprit is revealed -- It is me!  Yes, there is a small plug, about 1/4" diameter, that should be screwed into a like sized hole near the bottom of the raw water strainer to permit the strainer to be drained. Alas, the boat's resident idiot had left the plug on top of the strainer and so there is effectively a 1/4" hole in the boat, below the water line, through which sea water was rapidly spurting. An easy fix -- I screwed in the plug and let the bilge pump do its work. But I learned that a 1/4" hole will let in enough water to overwhelm the dispelling capacity of the bilge pump! And I'm reminded again of the rule: never leave your boat during the first few hours after launch; use that time to check for leaks lest your boat sink at the dock.

The Huguenot's yard manager is telling me that if I'm not off their dock "today", they will charge me for one night's dock rental. If this is true, it is contrary to the policy in prior years: one night's free dockage at the beginning and at the end of winter storage. And the old rule is a needed one to permit the dismounting and remounting of sails (while in the water so 1.) there is no fear of tipping over the boat by having sails aloft on land being caught by a gust of wind and 2.) so the headstays can be detached and reattached more easily, without the sheer weight of the sails wrapped around them) and so sails can be used as moving power to get the boat between the Harlem and the Huguenot. I will speak to the management about this.
 In any event, once the leak was stopped I tried to start her up again, but the tricks I knew failed and hence I called trusty and under-priced (yes this is not a typo) Ed Spallina, and drove home with ILENE still at the dock.
Ed met me at ten the next morning. We bled out the air and I watched, helped him and learned more about how the engine's fuel delivery system works. I wrote up the details of this process and will keep that paper in the service manual at the page that "describes" the bleeding process. Yanmar's manuals are woefully lacking in detailed instructions for people like me who are not previously mechanically trained. ILENE hummed again and I was off the dock, by myself, before 11 a.m. Tuesday, less than 23 hours after launch. A very uneventful motor passage through the western "back door" of New Rochelle, at near high tide to City Island.

There, I had to ask Dave, the Head Launch Operator to help me find ILENE's mooring; they all look pretty much alike without their occupants. I had to make three passes to pick up the stick because its float had slid too high up its shaft, causing it to float too low, but we got on the mooring and I fixed the stick. Then I made the bed (which gives ILENE her lovable liveaboard look), hoisted and furled both of the headsails (which was difficult, despite my spraying copious amounts of McLube on the luff bead, because the wind decided to come up), vacuumed up the big stuff in the saloon, put away everything and caught the last launch ride back ashore at 4 pm. Summer service, when launch service continues till at least 8 pm are not yet in effect. Dave was kind enough to drive me and drop me off at my car on his way home, which saved an hour of public transportation (two buses!). The end of work day 40 of 2017. From now until we haul in the fall, work will continue but most will be occurring on days when we live aboard or sail.
       And yes, the first sail of 2017!

 My companion was Chanda Laine Carey, Mellon Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor of Art History at NYU. She was a presenter at the CUNY art symposium I attended on April 18. (see blog post) She spoke about a painting by Kerry James Marshall called The Gulf Stream, 2003, which was homage to the iconic 19th century painting with the same name by Winslow Homer. I provided some information about the pictured boat at the symposium and for Chanda, our sail was professional research while for me it was pure pleasure. I filled her head and notebook with as much information about shrouds, sheets, halyards and other lines, sail numbering and lettering systems, points of sail, tides, etc. as I could, but we need another session for preventers, topping lift, knots, etc, on a day with more wind so she can experience the thrill.
We were off the mooring for about two and a half hours in very light air, though we did reach 4.5 knots of SOG briefly. We were under full main and Genoa and made three tacks to off Fort Totten before a broad reach back. And half a bottle of white celebrated our safe return. A nice easy gentle relaxing day. Summer is here; let the good times roll! Am I a happy camper?