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What I Saw
- Thread starter Philpott
- Start date
Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Thursday May 8, 2020
This week's unrace on the San Joaquin River had five boats chasing each other around. Four singlehanded boats left the dock @ 4 pm and we returned just as the sun was setting across the alfalfa fields. Another Delta sunset.
The wind wasn't so strong this week, none of us reefed, and one fella even switched his jib out for a really big one. The sails on Up Delta boats aren't fancy racing sails. In fact, they're kinda soft looking. Not very crisp, not fancy black ones made from high tech materials.
After the unrace I walked over to H Dock to thank the leaders for their hospitality. How did they choose the perfect course (again) that would offer wind the entire time, and a return to harbor before the sun set?
"Well, we can either turn right or left," said Randy of the Newport 28. That didn't really answer the question, but the Delta has indirect qualities.
Sailors around here know courses by the channel markers, not by landmarks. Did he remember where we turned around? He considered for a moment, counting to himself:
"Marker 57, 58," he said.
When I looked at the chart later I saw that we had sailed just past what on the chart is called Prisoners Point, turning between, yep, channel markers 57 and 58.
Indelicately I asked about the sails on Randy's boat: "How old is your mainsail?"
He looked over at Mark on his Nonesuch 30.
R: "When did I buy this boat from you?"
M: "You bought it from me six years ago. But I bought it in 2004 with those sails."
R: "Isn't this mainsail great? It has full battens and still has its shape."
M: "That IS still a great mainsail. Given its age."
They grinned like goofs. UpDelta sailors are happy with the boats they got.
It was another lovely night. Tshirt weather from start to finish, and then a scramble to put up the bug screen once back at the dock as night fell.
I learned about Seven Mile Slough unrace etiquette last week, and the intricacies of civil sailing society. Everybody lets the Newport 30 lead the way from Seven Mile Slough into the River. For some reason it has a bulb keel, and that keel carves a path through the choking grasses for the rest of us.
Once you get through the entrance it's a good idea to reverse and go forward a couple of times in order to shake off as much foliage as you can. What kind of foliage? I have no idea. It grows in the water, fakes out the depth finder. Sometimes it reads 9', then 3'. It's a surprise and adventure every time you leave and return to the Slough.
When we're all on the River we raise our sails. I followed a new yellow hull as it sailed downriver/upwind. After a bit the fella turned around and headed back, drifting close to Dura Mater in the flood. I called out:
"Are you going back in?" He was right next to us.
"No. There's another boat coming out. I'm waiting." He smiled.
So there was. The fifth boat emerged from Seven Mile Slough and etiquette required everyone to wait until its sails were raised. Alrighty, then.
Then we were off, down river and upwind until the wind clocked around 180 degrees and we turned one by one to head the other way. Toward Stockton. Which is up river. Yeah. That Up River/Down River business is a little confusing for the first four years.
At the end of the race everybody circles around until all boats have taken their sails down and are ready to return to port. Mark explained that they all do it as a courtesy: No boat left behind.
This week's unrace on the San Joaquin River had five boats chasing each other around. Four singlehanded boats left the dock @ 4 pm and we returned just as the sun was setting across the alfalfa fields. Another Delta sunset.
The wind wasn't so strong this week, none of us reefed, and one fella even switched his jib out for a really big one. The sails on Up Delta boats aren't fancy racing sails. In fact, they're kinda soft looking. Not very crisp, not fancy black ones made from high tech materials.
After the unrace I walked over to H Dock to thank the leaders for their hospitality. How did they choose the perfect course (again) that would offer wind the entire time, and a return to harbor before the sun set?
"Well, we can either turn right or left," said Randy of the Newport 28. That didn't really answer the question, but the Delta has indirect qualities.
Sailors around here know courses by the channel markers, not by landmarks. Did he remember where we turned around? He considered for a moment, counting to himself:
"Marker 57, 58," he said.
When I looked at the chart later I saw that we had sailed just past what on the chart is called Prisoners Point, turning between, yep, channel markers 57 and 58.
Indelicately I asked about the sails on Randy's boat: "How old is your mainsail?"
He looked over at Mark on his Nonesuch 30.
R: "When did I buy this boat from you?"
M: "You bought it from me six years ago. But I bought it in 2004 with those sails."
R: "Isn't this mainsail great? It has full battens and still has its shape."
M: "That IS still a great mainsail. Given its age."
They grinned like goofs. UpDelta sailors are happy with the boats they got.
It was another lovely night. Tshirt weather from start to finish, and then a scramble to put up the bug screen once back at the dock as night fell.
I learned about Seven Mile Slough unrace etiquette last week, and the intricacies of civil sailing society. Everybody lets the Newport 30 lead the way from Seven Mile Slough into the River. For some reason it has a bulb keel, and that keel carves a path through the choking grasses for the rest of us.
Once you get through the entrance it's a good idea to reverse and go forward a couple of times in order to shake off as much foliage as you can. What kind of foliage? I have no idea. It grows in the water, fakes out the depth finder. Sometimes it reads 9', then 3'. It's a surprise and adventure every time you leave and return to the Slough.
When we're all on the River we raise our sails. I followed a new yellow hull as it sailed downriver/upwind. After a bit the fella turned around and headed back, drifting close to Dura Mater in the flood. I called out:
"Are you going back in?" He was right next to us.
"No. There's another boat coming out. I'm waiting." He smiled.
So there was. The fifth boat emerged from Seven Mile Slough and etiquette required everyone to wait until its sails were raised. Alrighty, then.
Then we were off, down river and upwind until the wind clocked around 180 degrees and we turned one by one to head the other way. Toward Stockton. Which is up river. Yeah. That Up River/Down River business is a little confusing for the first four years.
At the end of the race everybody circles around until all boats have taken their sails down and are ready to return to port. Mark explained that they all do it as a courtesy: No boat left behind.
Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Delta Itinerary
This week in the Delta is forecast to be sunny and not too very hot. The Mokulemne River Bridge has been closed and the Three Mile Bridge has been out of commission, too. Because of this, the only way over to the Sacramento from Owl Harbor has required a trip back down the San Joaquin and around Sherman Island. DM does not like backtracking.
Her mission now that the Mokulemne River Bridge has reopened? Miner Slough.
Yeah. So out of Owl Harbor we go: along the San Joaquin to the Mokulemne, turn to port at Georgiana Slough, stop off for diesel at OxBow Marina, then sashay over to Latitude 38's Delta Bureau. After that, it's back up Georgiana again, going under the Tyler Island Bridge, then the Georgiana Slough Bridge, then anywhere our little hearts desire, to the final frontier of the year: Miner Slough.
I've asked around: Has anyone sailed Miner Slough? Bill Wells says it is 10 - 15' deep. Jim Quanci says that his fancy dancy satellite images show 4-5' depth. Rob shook his head sorrowfully. Everyone I've asked has encouraged me to go: "Yeah! Let us know how your trip goes!"
Phil Delano is proprietor of Boat US and I have a gold towing membership. I called him up and asked if Miner Slough is deep enough for a sailboat. He said he doesn't remember any sailboats ever going up there, but that one of his boats will come collect us if we need to be recovered. Which is good to know. I think.
This week in the Delta is forecast to be sunny and not too very hot. The Mokulemne River Bridge has been closed and the Three Mile Bridge has been out of commission, too. Because of this, the only way over to the Sacramento from Owl Harbor has required a trip back down the San Joaquin and around Sherman Island. DM does not like backtracking.
Her mission now that the Mokulemne River Bridge has reopened? Miner Slough.
Yeah. So out of Owl Harbor we go: along the San Joaquin to the Mokulemne, turn to port at Georgiana Slough, stop off for diesel at OxBow Marina, then sashay over to Latitude 38's Delta Bureau. After that, it's back up Georgiana again, going under the Tyler Island Bridge, then the Georgiana Slough Bridge, then anywhere our little hearts desire, to the final frontier of the year: Miner Slough.
I've asked around: Has anyone sailed Miner Slough? Bill Wells says it is 10 - 15' deep. Jim Quanci says that his fancy dancy satellite images show 4-5' depth. Rob shook his head sorrowfully. Everyone I've asked has encouraged me to go: "Yeah! Let us know how your trip goes!"
Phil Delano is proprietor of Boat US and I have a gold towing membership. I called him up and asked if Miner Slough is deep enough for a sailboat. He said he doesn't remember any sailboats ever going up there, but that one of his boats will come collect us if we need to be recovered. Which is good to know. I think.
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Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
The Delta is open for business
Dura Mater has been up here since Easter Sunday and is slowly winding her way back to Richmond.
The Delta is open for business.
Chatting on the outdoor patio at Tony’s (Walnut Grove) yesterday (while waiting for my delicious takeout steaksandwich) I learned that everybody up here got sick back in January/February, for two days (young woman who works at the Dodge dealership, just got called back to start again today, maybe sell some Rams over Memorial Day weekend?) up to several weeks (older farmer: “married 45 years”). Tony’s is open for dinner again tonight and the bartender/proprietor (“Cary, like Cary Grant”) is very happy about it.
I might come back up again later this summer. It’s awfully nice up here. Bring your water toys.
Dura Mater has been up here since Easter Sunday and is slowly winding her way back to Richmond.
The Delta is open for business.
Chatting on the outdoor patio at Tony’s (Walnut Grove) yesterday (while waiting for my delicious takeout steaksandwich) I learned that everybody up here got sick back in January/February, for two days (young woman who works at the Dodge dealership, just got called back to start again today, maybe sell some Rams over Memorial Day weekend?) up to several weeks (older farmer: “married 45 years”). Tony’s is open for dinner again tonight and the bartender/proprietor (“Cary, like Cary Grant”) is very happy about it.
I might come back up again later this summer. It’s awfully nice up here. Bring your water toys.
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Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Skip, so glad you continue to post here. Where is everybody? I thought I would return to a sailing bay area, but instead I return to a world of improved boats and people still engrossed in boat projects. Surely this will change soon?
In the meantime:
5.20.20
Denise Abbott works at Oxbow Marina, and made me feel particularly welcome while I was there. She came down to Dura Mater to see me off, which was nice of her. Denise moved to the Delta from Maryland a year ago with her fiance. They live in Lathrop, which is south of Stockton. The commute takes her about 35 minutes. She is really enjoying working on the water, especially here. In Maryland there are long hot summers and long cold winters and Denise likes it better here.
We talked while Dura Mater was still tied to the Oxbow Marina dock and Denise stood dockside as I was tying down DM's first reef. The mainsheet came un-cleated and the boom came across toward Denise's head. She ducked instantly and laughed. She told me that she had learned how to duck a boom on her grandfather's boat. What boat? I asked. And I wished afterward that I had turned on my tape recorder because Denise Abbott tells a very nice story.
She told me that her earliest memories were of sailing on her grandfather's skipjack, a sailboat. I thought that was a phrase for people who sneak away before their court date arrives, losing their bail money. She laughed, and without making me feel particularly stupid, explained that a skipjack is a type of sailboat, a traditional fishing boat with an impressive heritage.
Her grandfather owned a skipjack named the Thomas Clyde that he sailed out of Deal Island, Maryland. As a young child some of Denise’s earliest memories were of being taken along while the boat raced against other skipjacks on the Chesapeake Bay. Her grandfather impressed upon her the importance of ducking the boom when it came across during a race. Denise was so young on the Thomas Clyde that at first she was told to stay below during the races.
Her grandfather's name was Charles Abbott Senior, and his business was Island Seafood on Deal Island. There are still skipjack races on the Chesapeake every Labor Day. Denise told me that her family no longer owns the Thomas Clyde, but it is maintained in beautiful condition by the new owner.
Denise suggested that I might look up the history of skipjack boats, because they have an interesting history. So I did.
http://lastskipjacks.com/boats/thomasclyde.html
The skipjack is a traditional fishing boat used on the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. It is a sloop-rigged boat, and typically 40-50 feet long. I'm sure that Skip will know all about the skipjack. I will leave it to him to tell us more, because he's probably raced on at least one with friends. Just for fun.
In the meantime:
5.20.20
Denise Abbott works at Oxbow Marina, and made me feel particularly welcome while I was there. She came down to Dura Mater to see me off, which was nice of her. Denise moved to the Delta from Maryland a year ago with her fiance. They live in Lathrop, which is south of Stockton. The commute takes her about 35 minutes. She is really enjoying working on the water, especially here. In Maryland there are long hot summers and long cold winters and Denise likes it better here.
We talked while Dura Mater was still tied to the Oxbow Marina dock and Denise stood dockside as I was tying down DM's first reef. The mainsheet came un-cleated and the boom came across toward Denise's head. She ducked instantly and laughed. She told me that she had learned how to duck a boom on her grandfather's boat. What boat? I asked. And I wished afterward that I had turned on my tape recorder because Denise Abbott tells a very nice story.
She told me that her earliest memories were of sailing on her grandfather's skipjack, a sailboat. I thought that was a phrase for people who sneak away before their court date arrives, losing their bail money. She laughed, and without making me feel particularly stupid, explained that a skipjack is a type of sailboat, a traditional fishing boat with an impressive heritage.
Her grandfather owned a skipjack named the Thomas Clyde that he sailed out of Deal Island, Maryland. As a young child some of Denise’s earliest memories were of being taken along while the boat raced against other skipjacks on the Chesapeake Bay. Her grandfather impressed upon her the importance of ducking the boom when it came across during a race. Denise was so young on the Thomas Clyde that at first she was told to stay below during the races.
Her grandfather's name was Charles Abbott Senior, and his business was Island Seafood on Deal Island. There are still skipjack races on the Chesapeake every Labor Day. Denise told me that her family no longer owns the Thomas Clyde, but it is maintained in beautiful condition by the new owner.
Denise suggested that I might look up the history of skipjack boats, because they have an interesting history. So I did.
http://lastskipjacks.com/boats/thomasclyde.html
The skipjack is a traditional fishing boat used on the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. It is a sloop-rigged boat, and typically 40-50 feet long. I'm sure that Skip will know all about the skipjack. I will leave it to him to tell us more, because he's probably raced on at least one with friends. Just for fun.
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Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Who knew that such an esoteric post would bring out the inner nine year old? We here at the What I Saw thread aim to please.
Intermission
Member
I love the economy of the three reef headsail.
Skipjacks are interesting working boats. I had seen numerous pictures and line drawings over the years. When I saw the stern of one a few years ago, I was surprised. The transom looked like Alma.
It never occurred to me that the working platform on the aft end of the boat was like a barge.
Ants
It never occurred to me that the working platform on the aft end of the boat was like a barge.
Ants
Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Dura Mater and I wandered out of the bay yesterday, into the Golden Gate. We saw a number of boats, all singlehanded, doing the same thing, headed ... out there. Since there wasn't much wind we motored out just beyond Lands End, but then motored back in because there didn't seem to be much wind, and the water was lumpy glass. Here are Alan Hebert on Wildcat
and Todd Olsen on Waterwings
We arrived back in RYC harbor just in time for the wind to arrive. Big wind. Almost knocked me off her cabin top.
and Todd Olsen on Waterwings
We arrived back in RYC harbor just in time for the wind to arrive. Big wind. Almost knocked me off her cabin top.
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Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Philippe's in town with Changabang at the Sugar Dock in Richmond. That's a powerful boat with lots of ... well, everything looked complicated. I delivered peanut butter cookies and helped with some complicated water transfers.
hehehe. We filled buckets with water and balanced them on the bowsprit to lift the stern up out of the water a bit.
hehehe. We filled buckets with water and balanced them on the bowsprit to lift the stern up out of the water a bit.
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Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
What I Read
E.B White was an editor at The New Yorker Magazine, and the author of several children's books: Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan. He was also a sailor. He wrote this essay in 1963. I don't know about you, but certainly it captures my own visceral response to sailing.
WAKING OR SLEEPING, I dream of boats - usually of rather small boats under a slight press of sail. When I think how great a part of my life has been spent dreaming the hours away and how much of this total dream life has concerned small craft, I wonder about the state of my health, for I am told that it is not a good sign to be always voyaging into unreality, driven by imaginary breezes.
I have noticed that most men, when they enter a barber shop and must wait their turn, drop into a chair and pick up a magazine. I simply sit down and pick up the thread of my sea wandering, which began more than fifty years ago and is not quite ended. There is hardly a waiting room in the East that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or the drill begins to whine.
If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most. A small sailing craft is not only beautiful, it is seductive and full of strange promise and the hint of trouble. If it happens to be an auxiliary cruising boat, it is without question the most compact and ingenious arrangement for living ever devised by the restless mind of man - a home that is stable without being stationary, shaped less like a box than like a fish or a bird or a girl, and in which the homeowner can remove his daily affairs as far from shore as he has the nerve to take them, close-hauled or running free -parlor, bedroom, and bath, suspended and alive.
Men who ache allover for tidiness and compactness in their lives often find relief for their pain in the cabin of a thirty-foot sailboat at anchor in a sheltered cove. Here the sprawling panoply of The Home is compressed in orderly miniature and liquid delirium, suspended between the bottom of the sea and the top of the sky, ready to move on in the morning by the miracle of canvas and the witchcraft of rope. It is small wonder that men hold boats in the secret place of their mind, almost from the cradle to the grave.
Along with my dream of boats has gone the ownership of boats, a long succession of them upon the surface of the sea, many of them makeshift and crank. Since childhood I have managed to have some sort of sailing craft and to raise a sail in fear. Now, in my sixties, I still own a boat, still raise my sail in fear in answer to the summons of the unforgiving sea.
Why does the sea attract me in the way it does: Whence comes this compulsion to hoist a sail, actually or in dream? My first encounter with the sea was a case of hate at first sight. I was taken, at the age of four, to a bathing beach in New Rochelle. Everything about the experience frightened and repelled me: the taste of salt in my mouth, the foul chill of the wooden bathhouse, the littered sand, the stench of the tide flats. I came away hating and fearing the sea. Later, I found that what I had feared and hated, I now feared and loved.
I returned to the sea of necessity, because it would support a boat; and although I knew little of boats, I could not get them out of my thoughts. I became a pelagic boy. The sea became my unspoken challenge: the wind, the tide, the fog, the ledge, the bell, the gull that cried help, the never-ending threat and bluff of weather. Once having permitted the wind to enter the belly of my sail, I was not able to quit the helm; it was as though I had seized hold of a high-tension wire and could not let go.
I liked to sail alone. The sea was the same as a girl to me. I did not want anyone else along. Lacking instruction, I invented ways of getting things done, and usually ended by doing them in a rather queer fashion, and so did not learn to sail properly, and still cannot sail well, although I have been at it all my life. I was twenty before I discovered that charts existed; all my navigating up to that time was done with the wariness and the ignorance of the early explorers. I was thirty before I learned to hang a coiled halyard on its cleat as it should be done. Until then I simply coiled it down on deck and dumped the coil.
I was always in trouble and always returned, seeking more trouble. Sailing became a compulsion: there lay the boat, swinging to her mooring, there blew the wind; I had no choice but to go. My earliest boats were so small that when the wind failed, or when I failed, I could switch to manual control-I could paddle or row home. But then I graduated to boats that only the wind was strong enough to move. When I first dropped off my mooring in such a boat, I was an hour getting up the nerve to cast off the pennant. Even now, with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt, I still I feel a memorial chill on casting off, as the gulls jeer and the empty mainsail claps.
Of late years, I have noticed that my sailing has increasingly become a compulsive activity rather than a source of pleasure. There lies the boat, there blows the morning breeze - it is a point of honor, now, to go. I am like an alcoholic who cannot put his bottle out of his life. With me, I cannot not sail. Yet I know well enough that I have lost touch with the wind and, in fact, do not like the wind any more. It jiggles me up, the wind does, and what I really love are windless days, when all is peace.
There is a great question in my mind whether a man who is against wind should longer try to sail a boat. But this is an intellectual response - the old yearning is still in me, belonging to the past, to youth, and so I am torn between past and present, a common disease of later life.
When does a man quit the sea? How dizzy, how bumbling must he be? Does he quit while he's ahead, or wait till he makes some major mistake, like falling overboard or being flattened by an accidental jibe? This past winter I spent hours arguing the question with myself. Finally, deciding that I had come to the end of the road, I wrote a note to the boatyard, putting my boat up for sale. I said I was "coming off the water." But as I typed the sentence, I doubted that I meant a word of it.
If no buyer turns up, I know what will happen: I will instruct the yard to put her in again - "just till somebody comes along." And then there will be the old uneasiness, the old uncertainty, as the mild southeast breeze ruffles the cove, a gentle, steady, morning breeze, bringing the taint of the distant wet world, the smell that takes a man back to the very beginning of time, linking him to all that has gone before.
There will lie the sloop, there will blow the wind, once more I will get under way. And as I reach across to the black can off the Point, dodging the trap buoys and toggles, the shags gathered on the ledge will note my passage. "There goes the old boy again," they will say. "One more rounding of his little Horn, one more conquest of his Roaring Forties." And with the tiller in my hand, I'll feel again the wind imparting life to a boat, will smell again the old menace, the one that imparts life to me: the cruel beauty of the salt world, the barnacle's tiny knives, the sharp spine of the urchin, the stinger of the sun jelly, the claw of the crab.
E.B. White, 1963
E.B White was an editor at The New Yorker Magazine, and the author of several children's books: Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan. He was also a sailor. He wrote this essay in 1963. I don't know about you, but certainly it captures my own visceral response to sailing.
WAKING OR SLEEPING, I dream of boats - usually of rather small boats under a slight press of sail. When I think how great a part of my life has been spent dreaming the hours away and how much of this total dream life has concerned small craft, I wonder about the state of my health, for I am told that it is not a good sign to be always voyaging into unreality, driven by imaginary breezes.
I have noticed that most men, when they enter a barber shop and must wait their turn, drop into a chair and pick up a magazine. I simply sit down and pick up the thread of my sea wandering, which began more than fifty years ago and is not quite ended. There is hardly a waiting room in the East that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or the drill begins to whine.
If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most. A small sailing craft is not only beautiful, it is seductive and full of strange promise and the hint of trouble. If it happens to be an auxiliary cruising boat, it is without question the most compact and ingenious arrangement for living ever devised by the restless mind of man - a home that is stable without being stationary, shaped less like a box than like a fish or a bird or a girl, and in which the homeowner can remove his daily affairs as far from shore as he has the nerve to take them, close-hauled or running free -parlor, bedroom, and bath, suspended and alive.
Men who ache allover for tidiness and compactness in their lives often find relief for their pain in the cabin of a thirty-foot sailboat at anchor in a sheltered cove. Here the sprawling panoply of The Home is compressed in orderly miniature and liquid delirium, suspended between the bottom of the sea and the top of the sky, ready to move on in the morning by the miracle of canvas and the witchcraft of rope. It is small wonder that men hold boats in the secret place of their mind, almost from the cradle to the grave.
Along with my dream of boats has gone the ownership of boats, a long succession of them upon the surface of the sea, many of them makeshift and crank. Since childhood I have managed to have some sort of sailing craft and to raise a sail in fear. Now, in my sixties, I still own a boat, still raise my sail in fear in answer to the summons of the unforgiving sea.
Why does the sea attract me in the way it does: Whence comes this compulsion to hoist a sail, actually or in dream? My first encounter with the sea was a case of hate at first sight. I was taken, at the age of four, to a bathing beach in New Rochelle. Everything about the experience frightened and repelled me: the taste of salt in my mouth, the foul chill of the wooden bathhouse, the littered sand, the stench of the tide flats. I came away hating and fearing the sea. Later, I found that what I had feared and hated, I now feared and loved.
I returned to the sea of necessity, because it would support a boat; and although I knew little of boats, I could not get them out of my thoughts. I became a pelagic boy. The sea became my unspoken challenge: the wind, the tide, the fog, the ledge, the bell, the gull that cried help, the never-ending threat and bluff of weather. Once having permitted the wind to enter the belly of my sail, I was not able to quit the helm; it was as though I had seized hold of a high-tension wire and could not let go.
I liked to sail alone. The sea was the same as a girl to me. I did not want anyone else along. Lacking instruction, I invented ways of getting things done, and usually ended by doing them in a rather queer fashion, and so did not learn to sail properly, and still cannot sail well, although I have been at it all my life. I was twenty before I discovered that charts existed; all my navigating up to that time was done with the wariness and the ignorance of the early explorers. I was thirty before I learned to hang a coiled halyard on its cleat as it should be done. Until then I simply coiled it down on deck and dumped the coil.
I was always in trouble and always returned, seeking more trouble. Sailing became a compulsion: there lay the boat, swinging to her mooring, there blew the wind; I had no choice but to go. My earliest boats were so small that when the wind failed, or when I failed, I could switch to manual control-I could paddle or row home. But then I graduated to boats that only the wind was strong enough to move. When I first dropped off my mooring in such a boat, I was an hour getting up the nerve to cast off the pennant. Even now, with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt, I still I feel a memorial chill on casting off, as the gulls jeer and the empty mainsail claps.
Of late years, I have noticed that my sailing has increasingly become a compulsive activity rather than a source of pleasure. There lies the boat, there blows the morning breeze - it is a point of honor, now, to go. I am like an alcoholic who cannot put his bottle out of his life. With me, I cannot not sail. Yet I know well enough that I have lost touch with the wind and, in fact, do not like the wind any more. It jiggles me up, the wind does, and what I really love are windless days, when all is peace.
There is a great question in my mind whether a man who is against wind should longer try to sail a boat. But this is an intellectual response - the old yearning is still in me, belonging to the past, to youth, and so I am torn between past and present, a common disease of later life.
When does a man quit the sea? How dizzy, how bumbling must he be? Does he quit while he's ahead, or wait till he makes some major mistake, like falling overboard or being flattened by an accidental jibe? This past winter I spent hours arguing the question with myself. Finally, deciding that I had come to the end of the road, I wrote a note to the boatyard, putting my boat up for sale. I said I was "coming off the water." But as I typed the sentence, I doubted that I meant a word of it.
If no buyer turns up, I know what will happen: I will instruct the yard to put her in again - "just till somebody comes along." And then there will be the old uneasiness, the old uncertainty, as the mild southeast breeze ruffles the cove, a gentle, steady, morning breeze, bringing the taint of the distant wet world, the smell that takes a man back to the very beginning of time, linking him to all that has gone before.
There will lie the sloop, there will blow the wind, once more I will get under way. And as I reach across to the black can off the Point, dodging the trap buoys and toggles, the shags gathered on the ledge will note my passage. "There goes the old boy again," they will say. "One more rounding of his little Horn, one more conquest of his Roaring Forties." And with the tiller in my hand, I'll feel again the wind imparting life to a boat, will smell again the old menace, the one that imparts life to me: the cruel beauty of the salt world, the barnacle's tiny knives, the sharp spine of the urchin, the stinger of the sun jelly, the claw of the crab.
E.B. White, 1963
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Philpot, I thought you had written that yourself, until I saw the notation at the bottom. I think it reflects the thoughts of every one of us on this forum. Whenever my wife says that the boat costs a lot of money for a small of sailing each week, I tell her that while I might only be on the water 8 hours a week, the other 160 hours I'm dreaming of sailing. The all in cost of 50 cents per hours is darned cheap for the wonderful life it has given us.
Philpott
Cal 2-27 Dura Mater
Oh, Foolish! For awhile there you thought me very erudite. I will change the attribution so no one is deceived. It is such a wonderful little essay I was compelled to share it.
I received several private messages here and via email thanking me for posting E.B. White's comments. I read a bit further, and learned that his son, Joel, became a boat designer.
http://sailingmagazine.net/article-1682-e.b.-white's-daysailer-comes-home-to-his-family.html
I received several private messages here and via email thanking me for posting E.B. White's comments. I read a bit further, and learned that his son, Joel, became a boat designer.
http://sailingmagazine.net/article-1682-e.b.-white's-daysailer-comes-home-to-his-family.html
Douglas Whynott wrote 'A Unit of Time A Unit of Water Joel White's Last Boat'. The book is a wonderful narrative including, EB White, Joel White, Steve White, the Brooklin Boatyard, and the surrounding community.
Highly recommended.
EB White 'Omit unnecessary words'. For me, only on slim occasions.
Ants
Highly recommended.
EB White 'Omit unnecessary words'. For me, only on slim occasions.
Ants
You must have your copy of Strunk & White close by or memorized.
Engineers were not allowed to buy the book.