August 20 to 29 One Goofed Up Day and Five Day Sails 23 75 Hours

We goofed up one day by believing the weatherman, who had predicted a 90% chance of rain. This was the evening before so Lene called her four high school classmates and adjourned the sail in favor of the rain date in early October. We should have waited until the morning of the day in question to check the weather. By then the prediction was only 15 percent and in fact there was no rain. Oh well; no use crying over unspilt rain. Lene and I went to the Met and saw some great art and this not-so-great but iconic American painting, The Jolly Flatboatmen, by George Caleb Bingham.

Sue and Seth

had won a ride on ILENE at a charity goods and services auction. They brought along his sister Val and her husband Steve. Sue and Seth had won the ride about four years ago and brought their kids that time. This time they also brought a bountiful, delicious and healthy lunch and they are oenophiles so we all had a good time.

We were out there for 5.5 hours, but only in the last did the wind come up, to make sailing fun and they had the joy of helming as we tacked back and forth across Eastchester Bay. The longer part of our time together we sailed at about two knots or motored. I kept complaining about the lack of wind but they were having a ball, just being out on the water.

Next time it was five hours with Peter, who was one of my three companions on the eight day Virginia to Tortola run at the beginning of this blog in November 2010. Best wind since we have gotten home in May. It is getting closer to September when stronger winds come into Long Island Sound. We sailed off the mooring. I started and ended with the small jib but put out the genoa for the long tack which took us about a mile past Matinecock. We were doing over seven knots with a peak of 8.3. On the way back, on the starboard tack, we were overpowered and going a bit slower and so shifted back to the small jib which was plenty in about 18 knots of apparent wind. We tacked our way up Hart Island Sound on the way back. A lovely day.

There were ten Old Salts, including Frank, Morty and Clara with me on ILENE and six others on Ohana. Wind not as strong as the day before but plenty to have a fun sail, deep into Little Neck Bay and thence back and out part-way along Hart Island. Three hours underway. Scenes of merry noshing on ILENEs mooring after the sail.

I had dinner with Mike and Sandy and Morty and Clara at the Alehouse, a very inexpensive restaurant on the island, which features $2 Pabst Blue Ribbons. Lene, who went to a wedding rehearsal event nearby, picked me up for the ride home.

Lene came with me when we took out Stan and Susan, newbie sailors who we visited in Great Barrington last month, and will see again on the Labor Day Weekend. No photo; my bad. They had wanted to spend "a few days" with us on and from Key West, but I think it is best for people who have never sailed before to try a day sail first rather than potentially trap themselves (and us) in an experience that is not everyones cup of tea. And now they want to come for a few days in Maine next summer, which will be great; but they have not yet experienced sailing because we motored essentially all the way, due to very light winds. After the prior two sailing days I had thought that the annual July-August doldrums had ended a bit early, but alas, no significant wind. Stan and Susan, who dont know better yet, were very happy on the water.
I had a moment of horror near the end. Auto was steering and easily, north from off Stepping Stones generally toward our mooring. I had busied myself with coiling the lines and putting the sails away. In other words, I was not looking where we were going. When I finally looked up, I saw where we were  --  we were inside Big Toms triangle and headed for its center. And it was quite a low tide, near the full moon. WOW!  I ran back to the cockpit, grabbed the wheel out of autos hands and spun the boat sharply 180 degrees and got us out of that terrible triangle ASAP. The water was still ten feet deep when this happened but if I had not looked up for a few more seconds, we would have had a hard grounding on unforgiving rock. Pay attention, Captain!
The last hundred yards to our mooring there was less than six feet of water at points, with the depth sounder sounding off as we approached. No harm done. We enjoyed dinner at the Club; Thanks Stan and Susan.

The last of the five sails in this period was with Lene, Sheila, Dee and Jeff. All have sailed before and all except Dee on ILENE.

I picked them each up in Manhattan and again we suffered from the lack of wind, though there was a bit, and it did come up nicely (to 15 knots) for the last of our 5.5 hours off the mooring. As we had done the day before, we went into Manhassett Bay to near Louies. Here is a selfie by Jeff, though not smiling for some reason, because alas, your photographercaptain was asleep at the camera switch. At low tide, with a full moon, the water was only 5 4 deep for the last 100 yards to the mooring so ILENE cut a four inch deep groove in the soft silty mud. Dinner again at the Alehouse before driving our guests to their apartments.

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Four More Great Sails Round Out July And A Serious Health Issue Changes Plans for August

Four more day sails and one work day closed out July. Regrettably, Lene was not aboard. Average of 4.55 hours per sail.
First was Greg and Kathy. Greg is a member of my Mens Book Group. We men get to meet each others wives when we have dinners at each others homes and at our annual Spring social. Kathy and Greg have also visited the Barnes Collection in Philly with us a couple of years ago. Greg, a terrific artist and retired professor of drawing has sailed with me several times and Kathy, a retired teacher,

Gregs drawing, sorry about side view.

overcame her fears on this rookie voyage. The wind started at less than ten and grew to more than 15 as the day wore on. We used the small jib and main, getting to Sea Cliff YC and then dipping into Manhassett Bay far enough to see Port Washington, on the way home. Pinot Grigio on the mooring at the end. We have been enjoying stronger than normal winds this July.
Next up was Cynthia, a past guest, in a lot of wind for 2.25 hours underway. We used reefed main and no head sail and made speeds of five to seven knots on beamy reaches back and forth into Little Neck Bay.
The excitement came at the end, when it was time to fetch the mooring. This is no task for a sweet petite lady who is a bit older than I. So I had to try to get close to the pickup stick and slow ILENE before running forward to the bow to grab the bobbing pickup stick and then pull up and grab and attach the bridle before the wind blew us away. I made six tries. The problem is that when you slow down enough to not race past the mark, even though you aim as close to the wind as possible, the wind will come a few degrees on one side or the other and blow the boats bow away. I gained a new appreciation for the accomplishments of my friend Jim, who sailed "Aria" solo for many years, though his run from tiller to bow, on a 26 foot boat, was shorter than mine. Twice I grabbed the pickup stick in these six tries. The first time the boat turned and the wind pushing on its side made the boat too heavy for me to hold; I had to let go. Frustration!!!! The second time the cheap flimsy line with which the mooring servicer had tied the pickup stick to the bridle -- parted! I had the stick but it was no longer attached to a bridle. FRUSTRATION! And in all this I had a few close encounters with friends moored boats -- but no touches. Strong reverse gear pulled ILENEs bow back past the bow of the neighboring boat. So what to do? Call the Harlem launch and ask for help! The operator wisely let me wait, circling, for a few minutes while he got reinforcements. Two strong men Dave and Jeep, jumped from the slow moving launch to the slow moving ILENE. Then, when I got ILENEs bow to the mooring ball, and held her there, they used a boat hook to grab the bridle and the problem was solved. The alternative plan B I had contemplated would have been to go a bit outside of the mooring field and drop anchor. Cynthia professed that she was never worried. This was because I never showed my fear. Lene joined Cynthia and me for dinner at Neptune Restaurant, a favorite, on First avenue near 12th Street.

Next I enjoyed a very productive work day with Lenes cousins sons, Jake and Jared. They were transformed from guests the weekend before, to worker bees, for five hours. The economy is so weak that they dont have summer jobs. So they liked the money and I liked the quality and quantity of the work they accomplished, largely helping me bring the RIB dink from the upstairs locker to the dock and compounding and waxing the topsides and cockpit. While they worked I varnished the other side of  the cafe doors, replaced the mooring bridle to pickup stick line with a stouter one, whipped a few ends and cleaned up the galley stove top. I also picked up the outboard from Tony, proprietor of Island Outboard, two blocks from the Club, on City Island Avenue (718) 885-2012. Tony has done a lot of good work on my outboard over the years and we use it many times more than most people.
Next day being a Wednesday, I tried to revive the Club within a Club (See Blog, July 2012.) This is the informal group of people who have Wednesday afternoons available. With the loss last year of four of our larger boats (ILENE was in Maine), the group had sort of fizzled out. But on only 15 hours notice only three other folks showed up. The very light winds may have held down attendance as well and I have been encouraged to try artificial respiration again later, with more notice. Morty asked that we sail with him and his wife Clara on their 30 foot Catalina, "Easy Living." Completing our quartet was a new member, Mary, an Oncological Nurse Practitioner, who does not have a boat yet but has been found qualified to use the Clubs J-24s and is enthusiastic.  The sailing was rather listless with very light wind but we did get up to 4.5 knots on two occasions when puffs lifted us. And the lunch before hand, the conversation during and the G&T (vodka actually) after were all quite good.
Finally, on the last day of the month, I helped set up a sail with our former member, Nick, whose boat we helped sell last year after he became a resident of the Hebrew Home for the Aged due to memory issues.

Master carpenter and dance instructor, Nick, at dinner after.

I signed him out and was met at the Club by three other old friends of his, one of whom, John, had driven up from Marylands Eastern Shore.

Don and John

We were off the mooring for five hours: close hauled out of Eastchester Bay, then broad reaching with a couple of jibes to about six miles east of Matinecock Point before tacking for one long  close reach back past Execution Rocks. Then to give them some excitement, after changing back from the genoa to the small jib, we tacked back up through Hart Island Sound, over to near L.I. and then to the mooring. After dousing sails we passed through the channel behind Big Tom under motor and went through the City Island YC fleet looking for Nicks old boat but we did not spot her. All of these men are good sailors. Like Nick, Don and John are past members of the Harlem. Nick taught John how to sail. Don preferred to trim sails and the other three men shared the helm. Nicks memory problems definitely did not involve any impairment of his ability of to handle the helm.  Pat, rounded out our group.

Co-organizer of the event, a nurse, and one of the most knowledgeable and helpful men in the Club.

He spotted a damaged ring clip at the tack of the jib,which we replaced and taped. It was catching the Genoa jib sheets, causing damage to them and itself. I usually try to "improve" my friends boat when I sail with them. This time Pat did this for me. He had also brought the Chardonnay that we shared in the cockpit, apres sail. Then the guys helped my try to inflate the dink on the dock noting that the washer at the end of the pump hose was missing, which was the problem. (A new one is on order.) The day ended with dinner together before the three others drove Nick home.
And proving that our rosy life does not exist without a few thorns, I got a call from Lene during our dinner. The needle biopsy of her left lung came back as malignant, but stage one, slow growing and small. It gives one cause to pause. It will be removed by laperoscopic surgery on August 12, with preparatory tests between now and then. If one has to catch cancer, this is the type to get and the early dtection was quite lucky.
But, of course,  this means that our plans to cruise up to Nantucket during the entire month of August will not come off. We are now planning a short five day cruise in the Sound before the surgery, during which we hope to catch up with the HYC Club Cruise, at Matinecock, in the Sound. Lenes attitude is really great. She is cheerful, positive, determined and optimistic. She knows that worry does one no good. NYUs Langone Medical Center is a world class hospital and she has excellent doctors. Stay tuned!

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