Timmy,
Merry Christmas to you and yours !
Patrick
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 10:47 AM
Subject: RE: catalina27-talk: Race Sails & Ballast/IB v OB
I probably already told this to the list once or twice, but it's worth
retelling and I can always
further embellish it to make it even whackier and stupid than it actually
was in real life, so here goes:
-----------
I have NO IDEA what we were thinking, but it was not summer, I think it
was in November, but it was an unusually warm night and my wife's entire
family was in town...we went out to eat in the neighborhood where my boat
was kept in a slip. It was many hours after sunset and we left the
restaurant and it was, by god, UNUSUALLY WARM, and this was in the Inner
Harbor and the all the city lights looked beauty-full, so we decided, what
the heck, let's all go for a quiet motor all the way up into the Innermost
of the Inner Harbor! What fun!! How exciting!!
Only: there were 9 of us on a Columbia 22. That's a lot...all dressed in
stupid shoes and skirts and dress slacks and coats and ties.
We looked somewhat ridiculous, I'll grant you that....6 adults (one in her
late 70's) and 3 kids under 10 years old. I think, I'm almost positive I
had 9 PFD's on board. Of that I am sure...kinda.
But anyway, it was blowing all of 1 knot and the sea state (harbor state)
was like a mirror...it was very beautiful..all them-there lights. Not
another boat moving anywhere...
Needless to say there was not a whole lot of room in the cockpit...in fact
it almost impossible to move the tiller, but the old Merc fired up right
away (i HATE mercs) and we made our way up into the Harbor, past the toxic
waste site left by Allied Signal (on the EPA's superfund list at that
time) past the Domino Sugar Plant (recent fire has shut down a few floors)
past the Batlimore Museum of Industry (and the Steam Tug "Baltimore,' once
a DuPont pleasure yacht, past the National Aquarium and the Rusty Scupper,
past the diesel sub "Torsk" and up to the seawall at the Rouse
Corporations' Harbrplace.
A few crew disembarked to get hot coffees and assorted desert
drinks...tourists walked by and cluelessly thought we, who actually were
clueless, too, were pretty cool for "sailing" up to the Inner Harnor in
Nvoember.
Of course, you can guess what happened...pretty-much nothing.
Excpet about 15 yards off the seawall the O/B conked out and would not, no
way, no how, start back up again. No way, nuh-UH! My brother-in-law
started to get his cell phone out (pretty much a novelty item back in
those days) and call for a tow, when the sharp-eyed skipper noticed the
wind had piped up to a roaring 2 kn off our stern. So, he hauled up the
flaccid burnt-out gennie, and hanked that puppy on, to the amazement of
the assembled, captive and near-paniced Family-in-Law (while my wife
calmed them, saying, "Dont worry...he knows what he's doing") hoisted that
piece of crud swath of Dacron® and off we sailed back toward the marina at
maybe 1.5 kn, under headsail alone!
We made a perfect, soft landing into the slip, whereupon my
brother-in-laws glasse's (his only pair...they were moving to Kansas the
next morning, facing an 18 hour drive) went ker-splash into Batlimore's
colloidal stew and settled in 18 feet...12 feet of "water" and 4 feet of
suspended hexa-valent chromium and sewage.
In the slip, I was able to diagnose the problem with the engine...no one
had ever
hooked up the gas line.
such is life.
tf
