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.