The Salvage Effort Continues

After the events of November 8, 2008, Kris and I mapped out a slow road to recovery for the girls. Joining the sailing club was step one; the hope being to get them around the water more often, and especially with other kids who sail and may inspire the girls to get back out on the water. With that in mind, I took the girls to the club on Monday night, the three of us intending to meet Kris after work.

Last night went well, in the other-kid regard. When we arrived at the club, Kris was already down at the dock, even though the mass of folks had gathered up on the hill. I think she was driven down there by the shorebound antics of the Laser fleet. With extremely light and variable wind, the bulk of the laserettes were up on the cliff yelling abuse at the race committee and the handful of laser sailors attempting to launch their boats.

We found Kris and then wandered back to the boat launch area where a precocious young lady, about 2 years older than A and M, was working her way down the ramp, deeper into the water, while holding onto the dock.

She told us she was looking for a 'daggerboard' that one of the sailors had dropped. A and M were very intrigued and pretty soon, with a bit of encouragement from the kid, they were hip deep with their new friend Sierra, all three engaged in an active, vocal recovery operation.



As the salvage progressed, they came up with an unopened bottle of Red Dog beer. If you clicked that link and read to the end, all I can say is, "I dunno." I didn't have access to this information prior to viewing the bottle cap. Or maybe I don't have much imagination. I read a lot of Batman comics as a kid, but I think the thrill for me was a sort of empowerment fantasy, rather than, well, let's just call it: the author's particular bent.

Anyway, after a half-hour or so of dagger recovery operations, (which I later found out from The Tillerman was more likely a rudder recovery operation, owing to the fact that Laser daggerboards are designed to float) the team shifted interest toward the rush of Laser sailors who were now trying to launch as the wind had come up and the race committee were dropping buoys.

Sierra offered to push a couple of the Lasers out and quickly jumped in the water to do just that. M followed close behind and the two of them created a proper nuisance in the midst of the Laser launchings. It was beautiful.



After everybody was underway, one of the race committee boats returned to the dock and the girls invited themselves along to 'help out.' I gave the guy in the boat an out, asking him if it was okay if the girls went along. He cleared it and away they went for at least an hour.

They acted as the escort boat when the Portland Spirit came through on its evening upriver run. They also waved flags and wreaked havoc on the high seas, I'm certain. The boat driver was nonplussed, however, on return. We delivered him a beer and told him we probably owed him two. He was happy to enjoy it with us and sat down to chat. With roots in Florida, our new friend, turns out, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica.

All in all, a good day at the club. Next step, getting the kids on the dinghy again. I think Sierra helped our case when she told the girls, "I love to do capsize drills. Want to do some capsize drills? They are the best!"

I can feel the perspective shifting.

Making a difference in other people's lives

If you're a 47 y/o real estate developer in Las Vegas, why would you justify the money and effort you spend on trying to maintain youth in these terms:

"If I can get out and be active and travel and see the world and be able to make a difference in other people's lives, then yes, I would want to have as long an existence as possible."

Of course, shortly thereafter we find out he's got a 38 y/o wife, who must be the other person in which he is making the aforementioned life changing difference.

If I ever say something disingenuous, my fellow bloggers, please slap me around.

sigh: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081207/ap_on_he_me/staying_young

My Chops: Busted

We sailed on Sunday and it was a beautimous day! Click that link to read all about it.

On a side note, since there was essentially no wind on Sunday, we mostly floated and told sea stories. The best had to be Shannon the Real Sailors recap of his Cascade Locks to Hood River race experience. The pictures there are great.

The story's even better when he starts talking about their attempt to recover from the mast-busting end to their racing day.

Apparently, they got out their pathetic little motor and could barely make any way against the Columbia waves and current. They limped into a little cove just out of the main river channel to recover their gear and situate themselves when a local came down and started yelling at them to get off his property. They explained what they'd just been through, if he couldn't tell from the wreckage strewn all over the boat and dragging in the water.

At this point Shannon ranted to us about the international sanctity regarding offering aid to a boat in distress. As polite as they tried to be, asking the guy if they could just use his little dock for a couple of minutes to get themselves situated, they found themselves staring down the unrelenting get-back grandson of former Lewis and Clark hosts.

Yeah, the guy told them to get lost because "the white man has been taking our land from us for too many years. I don't want you on mine." Whoops. They were on somebody's fishing reservation and they were not getting aid in the face of this disaster, no matter what.

So, best they could, back out in the Columbia to try and make way to a boat pull-out.

Swimming Lessons

An H2uh0 day on the water

http://loveandcoconuts.blogspot.com/2008/11/one-step-back.html

Dinghy Day Two

This could quickly become a habit, this messing about in boats thing.

Primero Dingho

Took the dinghy for her first sail today.

I like it.

It's a Wrap

...and not a moment too soon. If election season is going to take this long (truly started about six calendar seasons ago), then I vote we make it a six-year term. Hmm, with the caveat that no person named Bush can get more than one term.

I didn't vote for change, but I did vote for hope. I found McCain's concession speech to be gracious and statesman-like. It seems to me that if he'd have doled more of that out over the past six months, he'd have made it a closer contest. Nobody likes a cranky grandpa.

Obama has a tough row to hoe and I hope he's waking up this morning inspired and energized to get down to the real work. I would love for this to be a true era of Camelot for America.

Now, back to the sailing. I'm picking up the dinghy today! Sitting here waiting for the broker to call; should hear something before noon.

Unfortunately, I have a class that runs from 1600-2100 tonight, so Love and Coconuts will be sitting in the driveway at our house, where there are only doug fir cones to gather, awaiting that first sail.

I'm guessing I'll be calling in sick the rest of the week.

Dinghy Delay

Sigh. We have to wait a few more days.

A Sunny Day at the Needles of Isle of Wight

Check these guys, running up on the rocks in the Around the Isle of Wight race. Boat number two comes along and the dosey-do begins!

Our Dinghy Adventures

I am going to start another blog to cover our adventures in our dinghy. I'll keep it here. I don't know how practical it is to keep two of these things going, but the Log of the s/v Clarity is for the boat that we plan on sailing out of Portland with someday and I started this blog to track our progress to that end. I'll keep up with that progress here and chart our dinghy learning curve at Love and Coconuts.

Where did the name come from? Look back through these old posts and you'll see where love and coconuts came from.

In the search to satisfy our dinghy longings, we looked around at a few boats and debated how much time and effort we wanted to put into restoration, versus buying something that we could sail away in tomorrow. I looked at a Lido 14 on Sunday, but it had a few issues, including a need for new hardware and fabrication to get the tiller back in place. On the way home I stopped by the local yacht dealer to see the new big boats just arriving. They have a couple dozen big cruisers in the water, and a handful of trailerable boats in the parking lot.

This day I saw a newly arrived Hunter 170, very clean and they hadn't even put up signage. It also hadn''t appear in their brokerage list yet, so I had to track somebody down and find out the details. I went looking for somebody on the docks and took the girls along to also look at boats. We were down there for about ten minutes before my 5 y/o fell in the river trying to step across to the transom of a Hunter 38.

They are both very polite and the 7 y/o had asked "Permission to go aboard, sir." Unfortunately, sibling rivalry took over at that point and in the mad dash to be onboard ahead of one another, the younger mis-judged the gap and went in feet first.

I was able to fish her out pretty quickly, since she had on her super-floaty lifejacket and was armlength's away from me when she went in. We dried her off with some towels borrowed from a passerby and had to head home early.

I called back and got the scoop on the boat. Went and looked at her this morning with the broker. Took Kris over there to look at lunch and then made an offer, it got accepted and the check is now on the way from the bank. I'm expecting to swap the money for the title on Thursday/Friday. Here she is, sporting fall colors just off Tomahawk Island Drive on Hayden Island.

The 170 is an all plastic boat with a self-furling foresail and a nicely roached main. This one is in excellent condition. The previous owner bought her new in 2000 and has only sailed her about 20 hours, while storing her indoors. The sail covers are still a shiny dark Hunter blue and the sails are very crip.

The only thing I plan on doing right away is adding a boom kicker to save everyone's heads. Don't want to lose any crew to a head injury before they get a chance to give it up for some other reason, like having to sail in rain all the time.

Woohoo!

The Dinghy Search

I looked at the Lido 14 this morning. It's nearly ready to sail, so not a complete project boat, but it could use some more care. The 'nearly' is because the rudder apparently fell off, owing to some problem with the hardware attaching it to the boat, so it needs some repair and/or possible fabrication.

The woman who's selling didn't have the rudder handy. Apparently, she bought the boat from a guy who has used it for a few years to teach boy scouts how to sail. He sailed with her each time they went out and he's got the rudder. I don't know if that's because he was planning on getting the repair work done.

The sails were in fine shape and the rigging is all in good shape, with the running rigging having been replaced this summer. Kris is going to look at it this week and we'll make a decision before next weekend. The plus is that it's under a thousand bucks to get into and restoration will be inexpensive and good experience for us.

Hmm...

Woah-oh-oh-ohhhhh...

Any Boz Scaggs fans out there ... willing to admit it?

The Lido 14 is looking like a strong possibility. Meeting up with the doctor who wants to sell on Sunday. Woohoo.

So, maybe we'll be doing this Sunday afternoon:

International Lido Albacore Pelican

Part of Kris's and my mission is to sharpen our sailing skills by getting as much time under sail as possible over the next couple of years, before shoving off for blue water. We've been looking for opportunities to crew with other folks, as well as searching around for a reasonably-priced sailing dinghy to get some practice on while we target our finances on the big boat purchase.

In the process I've spoken to, or exchanged emails with owners of each of the title boats from above. I've also considered a couple of lasers that the local clubs have listed on their sites. The Lido 14 looks the most promising at this point and there's an active fleet ten minutes from my house. Although I haven't heard from her owner yet (a yacht broker we have been working with on the big boat is putting us in touch with her), I've got high hopes.

Pickings seem kinda slim around here for a trailerable sailing dinghy and the guys who have them and post them for sale seem reluctant to part with them even though I found them precistley becasue they had been posted for sale. Lest you think the problem is on my end, I have not asked about price, nor did I send annoying strings of emails asking questions about boat equipment or condition. I've simply requested a time/place to check the boat out.

The guy who posted the Albacore lives in a small town, eighty miles south of us, fondly referred to as CowValley. They have access to the Willamette River, which is pretty sheltered by high banks at this point, so, I imagine, this guy must have to drive an hour to the nearest lake to get in any real sailing and, being a farm town, I also imagine the sailing community is, well, standing long watches.

I found the Albacore posting last Friday and emailed him immediately, since Kris and I were headed down to Corvallis for the weekend. Serendipity, I thought as I hit the send button on my email interface. My son was playing on Saturday night and we had already planned to head down with the vacation home on wheels to spend the weekend. Maybe we come home with a new boat too...

So, what does the guy say? "Sorry, I'm out of town this weekend."

Here's a clue for you folks, if you post something on Craigslist on a Thursday/Friday, expect to be around that weekend.

Makes me think his wife made him post it and he didn't really want to sell.

Either that or it was some elaborate secret agent message that I stumbled into and gave the right response initially, but missed the follow-up code words.

Oy.

The search continues.