Sailing through the HHSA Finishing line (even through I wasn't racing)
Heading towards the West River with the cranes in the background
Cranes holding 'Love bug'
Synergy sailing into the West River
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.