This picture, taken by Uncle Marty, wound up being the cover of this year's yearbook. Pretty cool. What you have here is Mirage, followed closely by Uncle Jack himself in Ceol na Mara. And right behind him you have Brokher. By boat model you have a Pearson 26, a Tartan 3000, and a C&C 25.


Alli and I happened to be sailing that day, right before heading over to Lukeman's for Jacob's birthday, and caught the same sequence from just a bit to the west. This is just after a mark rounding, and the boats are headed south. I couldn't say just how long between Marty's picture and Allison's, but I don't think it could have been much longer than a minute.

The Jerry D

Here is one of the saltiest, if not THE saltiest guys on the bay. And one of the nicest - tons of excellent advice, good stories, and help. He is the guy who offered, made, and delivered to make the toe rail for the Redwing last year during the first, baby steps of the rerebuild.

And his boat, Chanson, is beautiful. And meticulously maintained. When I can get a picture of it that does the boat justice I'll post that as well.

"The sea has been much maligned. To find one's way to lands already discovered is a good thing, and the Spray made the discovery that even the worst sea is not so terrible to a well-appointed ship." - Joshua Slocum

17. daysail to Hemlock

What a great day! We had amazing weather: a cloudless sky, a warm sun, and an encouraging breeze just strong enough to get us home in style (sails up).

Jessica and Dan came out to visit and I'm not sure if they'd ever believe us that it actually rains on the bay. They came out last year and had perfect weather then, too.

It's fun to hang out with them - Jessica earns honors as Miss Sailing Enthusiast 2008, and Dan's the perfect combo of mellow and funny. And they love Alli as much as I do. I felt like I was out with family.

The SBCC was having another rendezvous this week and so Jack and Kathleen came out, too. Jack was nice enough to come over on the dinghy and let us borrow it to go over to the beach. It was a classy move on Jack's part. We ate lunch, came back, and had a swim.

We really need a dinghy!

And then a sweet sail home with just the jib.

16. Out and back again with Alli

Very windy.
Lots of chop.
Lots of spray.
Not what we wanted.
So, off the bay.

15. Racing on Redwing. Finally.

Redwing finally got out on the race course. Jack, Kathleen, Allison, and I raced in a strong breeze that the boat handled well. We had the rail dipping in the water for a lot of the beat, but we kept a full main and a slightly rolled in headsail. Under perfect conditions we would have had the Racing #2 up, but with the Rendezvous last weekend and some daysailing this weekend switching headsails just wasn't in the schedule.

We did have a great time, and as always, I learned a lot from Uncle Jack. The guy is a great teacher - as we headed for the second mark, going from a reach to a reach he advised that I take it a little to the outside so that when I turned I could come as close to the buoy as I could and get inside of everyone else. I was pretty sure that I had just read yesterday in Speed & Smarts that a tight mark rounding is better so as not to sail any extra distance. I'm a big, big believer in tribal knowledge - that the guys with the experience have tried all of the short cuts and tricks and have already discovered what works and what doesn't. So I went with what Jack said. Or tried to. We didn't have the smoothest mark rounding - nor the ugliest - but the boat right behind us managed to sneak inside of us as we headed out on the next reach, to the finish line. We managed to get ahead again by pointing higher, but it was a great lesson to learn.

I also learned a lot about starting position (Jack served as starting tactician and helped with when to turn, step on the brake (ease sails or head off the wind) or speed up (sails in, point closer to the wind)). We had a decent start, tacked pretty much right away, and were sailing in clear wind almost all the way to the mark.

At the first mark Jack stayed low and helped me pinch out other guys who were trying to establish an overlap (doing so gives them better position relative to the mark - I have to let them sail inside me, around the mark, which means I have to sail extra distance).

And, after a night and half a day of heavy rain, we had a magnificent sunset. Here it is with Southbound, a Pearson 26 just over our left shoulder. They would eventually finish in 4th place and we in 7th out of 11 racers in non-spin.

Jack's raft up and 14. the return

I had been looking forward to this event since the cruising schedule came out over the winter. Jack, Kathleen, and Uncle Marty & Fam hosted a rendezvous in Hemlock Cove last weekend.

I like Hemlock Cove for a lot of reasons: it gets crowded during the day and then thins out at night, so the place seems active and vibrant, and then calm and peaceful; the water is clean (no brown tide), and deep (swimming and diving and no worries about draft (how deep the boat is, or how far from the bottom); and there is an access through the dunes to the beach, so we can borrow a dinghy, go ashore, cross Ocean Parkway, and hit the beach for a walk or a swim in the waves. There was a rip current advisory out this weekend, so the surfers were out in force. Hemlock is a big surf spot over here, and has a reputation for having very territorial surfers.

After shopping, packing, and cooking (Alli), and cleaning, waxing, an organizing (Jar) we left right on schedule. Jack called just as we were leaving to tell us that we could raft to his starboard side and that he was rafter to Marty.

Some highlight of the weekend included another look at Miss Gracie, Uncle Larry & Fam's beautiful, new yawl; Loon, Mike D's new yawl; a water balloon raid by Zodiac, Seal-style by three dinghies full of kids from the other rafts (pictured); Uncle Marty's cooler full of PainKillers (the nutmeg really makes a difference!); the BBQ steak, BBQ stuffed red peppers (homemade croutons, mozz, garlic and basil), and pasta salad dinner we made and ate with Jack & Kathleen.

The idea of the rendezvous is that one or two boats host a party in the cove, or wherever (Great River is another place I want to check out), and around Happy Hour all the attendees from all the other rafts come over by dinghy for a party. Everyone brings some an appetizer or some sort of "frozen concoction that helps us hang on." For example, we brought some very tasty homemade bruschetta and garlic toast (Alli is an amazing cook; prepare for Fat Jar in the years to come.) and some nutmeg-less PainKillers (the nutmeg really makes the difference!). And after all the food is gone and everyone's thirst is quenched they leave for dinner on their own rafts.


And I would be amiss if I didn't mention the Kids Event organized by Mike D of Loon (Larry's old boat). While it didn't come off exactly as planned it was well-attended and generated a lot of enthusiasm from the kids and parents.

And then we sailed home without event in a very windy, choppy bay.

I include this picture of the moon in the rigging because it reminds me of a Albert Pinkham Ryder painting.


And I include this pic and ask you to compare it to this one, from back in the Persuasion days.

found my shoe!

Special Forces from the USS Redwing stormed the side of the road across from the train station last week and extracted Capt Jarrett's right shoe from its hiding place. No ransom was paid, and the shoe seems to be in good health.

I picked up some new gel inserts and have resumed wearing my beloved shoes. Good thing we don't have a mania for street cleaning or my boaters would have been long gone.

waxing (solo)

We're about half way through the spring cleaning agenda. That's right, the Spring cleaning agenda. Because I spent the whole spring bent over the engine we weren't able to get the waxing and the varnishing done. Actually, the varnish looks pretty bad. And so, too, did the cabin sides.

So today I went to the boat right after class and got to waxing the cabin top. It looks a lot better, but I am going to keep working on it and I'll probably get it to just the right luminosity. And then we'll haul the boat.

I have to confess there is an urgency to getting these beautification projects done: this weekend if Jack's Raft-Up. Ceol na Mara is the host boat. He's leaving tomorrow, and we are planning for Saturday morning. I don't want to be the dirtiest, not maintained boat at the raft up.

And I have some sad news, too: my beloved boat shoes have passed on to shoe heaven (yes, they had a sole soul). Comfortable, faithful friends since way back to the Persuasion days - gone!. And it's my own damn fault they got killed - I left them on the top of my car and then drove to work. I got so distracted by this dead greenfly on the roof of the Jeep, I got all discombobulated (How is he this far from shore? Did he die of cool weather?). And then I poked the fly with the edge of my shoe as I was putting them on top of the Jeep and it woke up, or whatever, and flew away. That gave me some even more to think about (Flies sleep on their backs? Was it a zombie? Would its bite hurt worse if it was undead? Could it?).

So off I drove. I did recover one of the shoes from the side of the road today after a medium-long search for them. I'm planning a search for its partner tomorrow. And if I can't find it, I'm going to have a small memorial service on Sunday next.

13. 6-9-bridge-back

Today was a quick after-work sail, a lap around our half of the bay (our meaning Babylon's). We went out under the bridge and had a visit from a very speedy little Hobie Cat. After we went around 6, we tightened everything up and made it out to 9 with no other tacking.

After 9 we had an all-too brief run back to Babylon. Sometimes I wish for a light breeze from the East - do all the dirty work of sailing to weather, and then when we have had all we can take, turn for a nice, long run for home. I really like sailing down wind - peaceful, quiet, and just enough to concentrate on to prevent that peace and quiet from becoming boring. But, alas, it's all S here all the time.

We sailed up the creek, and I was half-hoping to dock under sail, but with this weekend's raft up on the schedule I didn't want to take any chances with breaking the boat on s sloppy docking.

12. Guests!

Yesterday we took out Alli's brother Steven and Alli's friend Sara.

It was a beautiful day, a bit on the windy side (of course, since we were bringing guests), but sunny all over.

We sailed down to Bay Shore and turned around right around red buoy #4 in Islip. It was pretty much a one-tack day. We did have to do a little dance around the sand bar between red #10 and red #6 (our old friend), but that was more of an exercise in caution than anything else.

It was also good to finally get some other people on the boat. I like having visitors, especially first timers who have a lot of questions about how the boat's systems work.

9. & 10. & 11.

Apologies all 'round to all my faithful reader(s) for being so far from you these past two weeks or so. I know, I've been distant. I haven't communicated my feelings. I let things build up to where I am dumping on you. And I apologize. But I have a good reason. I have actually gotten to go sailing!

Let me explain:

Sail #9, last weekend, of 2008 was a quick jaunt to a place I like to call "almost the bridge." It was a very windy day and I just didn't have it in me. We were able to get to the bridge in record time, and turn around - if you were on the bridge, you would have been able to get a good shot of us.

Sail #10, yesterday, was quite lovely - a sail down to Bay Shore and back in light wind. We left the dock around 4 and came back around 7.30. Too early to see a fabulous sunset, but it was such a nice day it was hard to complain. And we'll catch a sunset here pretty soon.

Sail #11, today, was about in between 9 and 10: same route as yesterday, with the same wind as last week. And there was a ton of power boats ruining, er, uh, I mean, running the bay which made it much more rocky and lumpy. The wind just picked up their wakes and turned it into a choppy mess. We took one wave so high up on the sail I thought the sail numbers got wet. A lot of sail boats out, too. We didn't reef, but did pull in a little bit of the jib before we got home.

And I was glad I wasn't trying to get to the beach by car: