Century Club: Jeffrey Halpern

I had decided to sail down and spend the night on the hook off Galesville on the West River. Entering the river I passed through the Finish Line for the HHSA West River race where a few of my CHESSS friends were serving as race committee. (See pictures taken by Ted Slotwinski) 

Sailing into West River you could not miss the massive cranes that had lifted the ' Love Bug'.  It was hard to judge how big they were until I realized that I was looking at the bow of the 120 motor yacht being drawfed by the cranes. 

I had great winds sailing down to the West River, and sailed up and dropped the hook undersail. Unfortunately, I hurt something in my shoulder putting the anchor down.  While it was only a sprain that largely went away on its own, but it was very painful leaving me concerned about whether I would be able to get the anchor out on my own.

For some reason, I saw a lot of folks that I knew while out there as a couple CHESSS members sailed by on separate boats and the crew from Parklawn Sailing came by for a chat on Vivace. They are getting ready to sell Vivace and get slighly larger more cruising oriented design. I had helped them pick out Vivace when they bought her. 

As it happened, I did not end up trapped on the anchor and I didn't have to do anything too crazy to get the anchor onboard. My wife, Barbara refers to getting the anchor up as 'a small one act drama', to which a friend once added, 'with a solo performance by a quixotic old man'. Getting the anchor up was only slightly more of a minor drama over a slightly longer duration than usual.

Before pulling the anchor up, I experimented with what I could do with my right arm without too much pain. I found that I could hold some load in a small range of direction with my upper arm down by my side.

Once I figured that out, I was able to put my body in a position where I pulled up the anchor rode with my left arm, and simply held it with my right. That worked quite well, although hauling up the chain was not without pain.

It also helped that I was motoring rather than sailing off the anchor. That allowed me to tension the chain vertically, rest a moment, and then fire a shot of reverse to break the anchor out.

Getting the anchor aboard wasn't easy but I was able to get in a position where I could use my right arm a little, but the toughed it out for a few painful moments.

Barbara drove down and I pulled in and tied up at Pirate's Cove to have a very nice brunch with her.

I had planned to motor home but it was too nice a sailing day, so I sailed home instead. It's interesting how quickly you adapt to using only one arm and only using your unfavored arm at that. The hardest part was casting off solo.

On the way out a snapped the atatched picture of 'Love Bug' in the slings of cranes. Her bow is to the right side of the barges. This picture gives an idea of how huge these cranes are, and yet it took two of them to bring her up. Frankly, in real life, it had a bit of an "Old Man and the Sea" like quality to it. In other words, "Okay, so you caught a really big fish...Now what ya gonna do with it?"

The rest of the sail home went pretty easy. It felt good to be out there. 

It was another day out on the water with the good folks at CRAB. This time it was with called the Abilities Network. Each of CRAB sailing days has been a bit different, but each is really enjoyable in terms of watching the guests as the enjoy the simple joys of being out on the water and sailing a boat.  

The good news is that I am starting to get more comfortable with the mixed responsibilities as a CRAB skipper. 

Jeff

Monday, Monday, so good to me
Monday mornin', it was all I hoped it would be
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way

Sometimes I help people who are trying to buy a new sail decide wade through the various decisions on what size, construction and materials for the new sails. In those cases I typically accompany them when they meet with the sailmaker and when the boat is measured. The best part is going out with the boat owner and the sailmaker when the new sail arrives, That was my Monday Morning. I had a lovely sail with David Flynn from Quantum sails on David Metzler's Dehler 39. While the forecast wasn't great, there turned out to be pretty decent winds and the temps were not insanely hot. The new jib was lovely and fit well. I had sailed the boat in similar conditions with the old jib and the new jib transformed the boat in terms of pointing ability, ease of handling and boat speed. That checked all of the boxes. 

Cooincidentally, this same Monday, I had been invited along to check out the new jib on Starbird, the Tartan 101 that I have been racing on. This time the sailmaker was Chuck O Malley from Chesapeake Sailmakers. The new jib was meant to be lighter weight but more heavily reinforced than the jib it replaced. By the time of the sail at the end of everyone's workday, the wind had piped up. With any new sail, there is a bit of fussing around that takes place until the sheet leads and halyard tensions are sorted out. That alone was a lot of fun. But once we got the fine tuning tweaked, the new sail seemed to be a major improvement in our upwind speed and pointing. Of course the real proof will be how we do on the race course, but it still felt marvelous to be out there. 

Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way....

I am ashamed to admit that Synergy hasn't been out of her slip in three weeks.  Granted I was traveling out west for over two of those weeks. And I have been sailing OPB. But still it is the heart of summer and she has languished under utilized through no fault of her own. Acknowledging that I desparately needed to do something about that, I slid out for a long and lovely daysail heading north towards the bridge before turning south to Thomas Point reaching home accompanied by the lowering sun's glinting off the waves to windward.