I HATE SHOES

Earlier this month marked the three year anniversary of starting this blog. More importantly, it marks three years since I first purchased Winchelsea  and starting taking steps towards changing my life forever. In those fervent annuals, this blog has been the single consistent thing in my life. I'm not using the ubiquitous noun 'thing' without reason either; it's not a human, quite obviously, because I've come to know people within that period I'll never know again;  I've had three boats, crossed the country three times, and gone on some fantastic sailing adventures. I'm not involved with any of them now to a great degree; some of them by choice, others not. It's impossible to guess how much I've learned in these past years, and I'll admit I knew next to nothing when I first started this blog and moved aboard Winchelsea . I've come full circle though, living again in the northeast for a winter. So far, it's been bliss. I've beco...

The old one was a hunk of rotten mahogany and the most visibly apparent reason why I could not head south this year. The new one is three 2x6 pieces of plantation teak, ordered from Florida in October. I had them shipped to Maine with the intent of driving up to my dad's place to assemble and cut it in his wood working shop up there. Unfortunately, the Geo is on its way out and won't make it off Aquidneck Island, I found this out the hard way. My dad came down to Newport with the wood and some tools and I started joining the pieces together the next day. After the epoxy had set, Elizabeth came down from Boston and helped me cut and shape the wood into one resembling the old bowsprit. I had to be careful on the length and get it exactly correct, I didn't want to get a new headstay! My neighbor at the marina here knew a guy with a big sander at the shipyard, that saved me a whole lot of time. After it was cut and sanded, I ordered some bronze hardware to ...

Last night it dropped below freezing for the first time this season. I could see my breath as I went to sleep last night and I was greeting in the morning with a thin layer of ice on the dock. All of this is so wonderfully reminiscent of living on Winchelsea  three winters ago in Boston. As much as I can't stand the cold, that was an extremely pivotal and significant time in my life, and to be revisiting it with the additional knowledge I've gained and a boat I truly desired is blissful. Below is my typical morning: bOatmeal and coffee with my Primus OmniFuel stove, that I plan to put on gimbals soon. Boatmeal is simply a handful of rolled oats (not instant), some dry milk, raisins, cinnamon and hot water with some Grape Nuts or granola on top. Yes, the coffee is instant, but I plan on fixing that soon. Hurricane Sandy was not all that bad on the Rhode Island coast. The floating dock I am tied to was above the fixed pier it is attached to, due to the 3-4 foot sto...

I got a reply to a post a couple of weeks ago from Bill, a guy who was taking his Allied Seawind through Newport. We met up that Saturday and spend the morning touring each others sister sailboats. His is a later model, 1968 if I remember correctly, with some nice paint and interior furnishings; see the pictures below. It's amazing what some new paint and some cushions will do for the aesthetics of a boat! Soveraine  isn't quite there yet though. The bowsprit is off (see below) and the new wood is in Maine awaiting my construction. After that I'll dive into the chain plate issue as well as the electrical rewiring (interior and nav lights, VHF, stereo, battery charger, etc) and then follow with interior paint and cushions. Let the winter of boat productivity begin!

No matter what the activity, there are always different subsets of people who prefer one aspect of it over another. Take something close to your everyday life like driving, for example. You have the simple commuter who uses a car to get from point A to point B in the most cost-effective manner. A different person on the same commute may view his car as more of a status symbol and will drive some sort of ridiculously expensive piece of machinery to be stuck in the same traffic. Still others prefer to race their cars, some for fun and some professionally. Others like to "motor", and for this class of driver I like to view a late 1950s Jaguar humming along the windy roads of Vermont on a crisp fall day through the foliage. Then there is the entire group of commercial drivers who see the highways in terms of dollars earned per mile.  Sailing is no different. Most traditionally, and probably the longest running form of recreational sailing, would be yachting. It began in the...

It started with the dissolution of an engagement. It ends today, more or less, with the final scheduled charter on Weatherly  for the season. We sailed into Narragansett Bay last night after an 8 day trip to New York and Connecticut. There were 25-30 knot headwinds going there, and about the same on our stern coming home. Newport has cleared out; the kids are in school, beaches are vacant on the weekends and the tour boat numbers are dwindling. What a ride though, from arriving in Newport freshly single again back in early May, getting a quick job on Madeline , then onto an ill-fated stint with Sumurun , getting Soveraine , driving from Florida to New England, sailing Soveraine to Newport, and spending the last two and a half months on Weatherly, lots of different boats for a single season. As I said before, I'm ready for a break. Not that I'll be idle, starting this week I'm looking for a steady, and preferably indoors, job for the winter. I don't much mind ...

Today I went sailing on Weatherly , as I have for half the summer, but it was no ordinary Monday on Narragansett Bay. We had a pretty standard charter and sailed back to the dock but, fifty years ago, to the day, Weatherly was sailed into Newport harbor as the 18th defender of the America's Cup. To commemorate this feat, as well as give recognition to a very historic vessel, Weatherly has been placed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. There's more info here:  http://news.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/2012/09/defender-of-ame.html Tomorrow we leave for New York for some charters and a regatta. Photos to follow!