quick! get those filters in!

from Newsday:

"About 100 gallons of oil may have leaked into a Babylon Village creek after a ruptured fuel oil truck pipe spilled home heating oil onto the street and into two storm drains, a Babylon fire chief said."

Seems to me they need to get more of those filters in more of the drains, and fast!

Cape Horn Road: Part Two

I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks!*

Thank you! to:

m'girl Allison;

Uncle Jack;

the ever-reliable Uncle Larry ¹;

the ever-reliable Uncle Marty ²;

Dan McM (driving the 'Wing, in this pic);

Joe M;

Dan R and Sara;

Jessica & Dan (R again);

AJ & Brett;

Brother Steve;

Jim, from Sailors' Choice for getting me back out there asap;

and Fate, Luck, and Chance.

Cape Horn Road: Part One

boatyard: after and before II

I like this picture of the boat for a couple of reasons, but primarily because of the trippy reflection off of the boat in front of me. If you look at the very front of Redwing's bow you will see a reflection that looks like the bow. You see what I mean?



And another from Friday. Sexy bottom. Such a small keel - helps if we ever bump, or come aground hard. So far we haven't gone very aground. We bumped bottom once by Lindenhurst when we hove-to for lunch, and then again on our way back from parts east.



Here's the folding prop. And the zinc from two summers ago. The prop was pretty clean when I last dived the boat to clean it - that was right before the Louis Orr race. I was able to open and close it pretty smoothly, and there weren't any barnacles in the gear teeth. Not much is as satisfying as hearing that bone-crunching destruction of the barnacles when you close the prop on them. Bastages should know better than to try to sneak a ride on the 'Wing



And for comparison, here is another shot from the last visit to the yard. I love going to the boatyard, being at the boatyard, and then leaving the boatyard. I into the busy vibe in the shop, and the actual yard itself. One of the best parts is not working, but hanging out with the other owners and visitors, standing around drinking a couple of ice-cold American Lagers. Granted, all the gabbing is sometimes annoying, like when you're all bemasked and begoggled, covered with bottom paint, holding the sander, and about halfway done and someone comes by and asks, "sanding the bottom, eh?" But that's more the exception than the rule.

Let the projects begin!

boatyard: after and before I

I finally visited the boat Friday in Amityville (amity as you know, means friendship). It's looking pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised about how much bottom paint was left, about how few barnacles and grime there was, and about how well the zinc and propeller looked. The boat has been in the water for two summers and two winters. Look at it!


And here is the boat before I put it in the water. Compare the two pictures and be amazed. Maybe my expectations were off; I expected a bruised and battered bottom. Even the zinc held up! Which is odd, because Jack, who is just a few slips away, for just about the same time period, had to change his twice. I guess that's about the boat, not where it is.


It was a good, brief visit. I didn't even look for a ladder, figuring I'd be back next week or weekend to get up and in. And my spot in the yard is a mixed blessing. I'm close to the front so I'm easy to get out when I want to get launched. But I am about as far from water and power as I could be, so it'll be an interesting project problem to deal with, especially in the Spring when I get to be a OCD-boat-washing-maniac.

everybody wins!

Storm water going to GSB to be filtered:

"The Village of Babylon plans to install filters at every village outfall pipe that leads to the Great South Bay.

'We're doing 93 of them,' Mayor Ralph Scordino said at a news conference yesterday next to a canal at Green Avenue, where the village installed a prototype two years ago.

The plan addresses one of Long Island's biggest water quality problems: contaminated runoff from heavy rains that washes oil, chemicals and animal waste off the land and into creeks and bays. Funneled via storm drains, the polluted runoff can temporarily close bathing beaches and make shellfish unsafe for human consumption."

Let me be the first to applaud Suffolk County and the Village of Babylon for doing something great. Putting in these filters all across the village may seem expensive but when you consider the long-term damage to the shellfish and beach industries they seem pretty cheap. And even without considering the financial implications, it's the right thing to do for the health of the Bay.

I'm more of the "build schools, not prisons" kind of guy so what I'd like to see is some legislation, at any level of government, that helps ease the need for the filters: ban the most dangerous pesticides; limit the use of certain kinds of fertilizers (fertilizers have been blamed as one of the causes of this summer's Brown Tide); and encourage recycling of all kinds of plastic bottles by passing a comprehensive Bottle Bill; and county/town/village pickup of garbage at places like Hemlock Cove, where any feeling of government services is nonexistent.

And here are the two companies who designed and built the filters: AbTech and Fabco.

Part Two: a wild set of mariners enough

First of the "wild set of mariners" to arrive is Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Worsley, Antarctic explorers and all around Men. Quite seriously, Shackleton is one of my heroes. I know that these days it's not cool to have heroes, but I often find myself thinking, "what would Shackleton do?" I mean, I'm an all out citizen of Wussbagia. I don't have the fortitude to go day sailing in my little protected Bay when it's super gusty, raining, or there's a brutal headwind (though I did go out in Persuasion once for about an hour when it was 34 degrees and blowing like a mother). Shack's ship was eaten by the ice and instead of being all soft and crying about it and looking for a federal taxpayer bailout Shack knew "he needed to act to secure the party's deliverance." Read about His Studliness here. I include Worsley because he was equally as tough: Vice Admiral of Manliness. When the two of them come in they say, "damn, it's too hot in here, open a bloody window! And a round of Guinness for all the men. And I guess we'll let Redwing have one, too."

Second to arrive is Joshua Slocum. A fairly obvious choice, but fuggit, it's my dinner and I can invite who I want. I'd love to hear about Capt Slocum's final sail, and hear the sea stories that didn't make it into the book. When he arrives at the Spouter-Inn he thanks Shackleton for the Guinness and sits at a table by himself, though he does chat amiably with all who muster the courage to approach.

Next is another hero: Joseph Conrad. Sailor and Author. I'm pretty sure English was his third language (behind Polish and French). Heart of Darkness. Fulk. Secret Sharer. Victory. Typhoon. His third novel. And Lord Jim, the one I can never get through. I'm sure he'd tell some interesting sea stories.

Next is Cayard; then Vito Dumas because I think he's hilarious; Valerian Albanov, also not from Wussbagia; and good, old Herman Melville: you gotta have the author of Moby Dick over for dinner when you can!

Eat, drink, and be merry!

Part One: that gable-ended Spouter-Inn

Here is Part One of my entry in Tillerman's writing challenge for this month. Here there be whales! And dinner! And I'll be immediately forthcoming and admit that, no, I didn't write any of what follows. So, precious little writing is this.

But what we have here is one place in literature I have always wanted to visit. This is from chapter 3 of Melville's Moby Dick. Ishmael has just arrived in New Bedford and is looking for dinner and a place to sleep. Unfortunately, the landlord tells him, there are no vacancies, but if he "doesn't mind sharing a harpooner's blanket," there's room. You can read more here.

I couldn't resist this set up. And I promise that next time I'll assume the wheel and write the rest of this yarn meself...

"Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose.

"The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump.

"Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way— cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fireplaces all round—you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft’s cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world’s remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den—the bar—a rude attempt at a right whale’s head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale’s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.

"Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without—within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads’ goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass— the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.

"A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth— the bar—when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an ice-island.

"The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously."

(...the paragraphs are in order, but not consecutive...)

one clam at a time...

"Over the past four years, more than three million adult clams have been returned to the bay, using a network of more than 50 sites where they can grow and reproduce without disturbance. Most of those sites are located within the Conservancy-owned, 13,000-acre Bluepoints Bottomland in the central Great South Bay. In addition, the Conservancy has been working across Long Island to protect and improve water quality and eelgrass habitat in local bays, two of the most important factors in clam survival.

By summer 2008, the moment of truth had arrived. Teams of scientists were sent out into the bay, armed with SCUBA gear and heavy equipment to estimate the juvenile clam population."

Find out what they learned by reading the remainder of the article here.

I had never really heard of the Nature Conservancy, or their efforts to help clean my beloved GSB, so when I found this I was pretty excited. I'm'na send them some of my hard-earned cash, become a member, and fill out an application to volunteer.

GSB from orbit

Here's a shot from the shuttle (I did not take this picture.) You can see the Robert Moses, the Verrazano, the Tappan Zee, and the Whitestone bridges (and if you know exactly where to look you can see both the Throgs Neck Bridge and the George Washington Bridge, too). And look at all of those lakes! Lots of water in these parts. At the bottom right hand corner of the picture is the area covered in that shot I posted last week.

one more for the birds

Another google alert sent me this article from a local paper about the birds of the bay. For you out of towners, Fire Island is the narrow strip of land that separates the great Great South Bay from Mother Atlantic.

"Ken soon makes a comment, which becomes a road map for me. Kestrels, the smallest of the falcons, flap hard because their size often makes them struggle with the wind. Merlins, slightly larger and chunkier raptors come in low and fast, flapping hard but not struggling. The peregrines ride on the wind. Control is their signature. While this is basically the case it wasn't a hard and fast rule, he added. Something about what he said combined with what I'd seen so far rang true with the old college professor in me. It was a guide to watching the hawks that I would use all day."

The rest of the article is here.

UPDATE (11:22pm): After an email exchange with the writer of the aforementioned article, who had an email exchange with his fellow experts, I've learned that the bird we saw was probably an adult peregrine falcon. That's awesome.

I'm pretty into Tillerman's Writing Project this time. I participated, twice, in one of the group efforts on the best sailing invention ever.

And so as soon as I get out from under this huge pile of 1st quarter grading, I'll set it up. And I encourage you to participate as well.

I wonder who will get invited. This is going to be one huge party!

...can't wait until 21 December...

With the days becoming ever shorter I don't feel in a rush to get to the boat. It's been out of the water for a week now, and it can wait, hibernating with its cousins in the boatyard.

I don't even check the weather - wind direction, strength, chance of rain, barometer, fronts - knowing that it doesn't matter, knowing that the 'Wing feels the weather but isn't moved by it.

But I am looking forward to 21 December, when we reach the maximum tilt and start heading back to long days and short nights.

Happy Veterans' Day

Thank you!

Here's a sweet video on the physics of sails and sailing (including how the forces applied to the keel and sail offset to produce forward motion). Many thanks to H2uhO for the find.

how beautiful is this boat?

I don't know the name of the boat, or whose it is, but it sure is beautiful. I love yawls/ketches! So classic. This picture is from 11 October.

The Bull

This here is the Bull 'o the Boatyard. A monster truck-crane hybrid that you do not want to mess with. The yard uses the Bull to drop boats into the service basin before they get moved to the island or one of the transient slips. It's pretty cool to watch - this thing is a beast.




It's old, it's ugly, but it's still got that bling!








Just look at these lead pigs they use to hold down the front (to balance the lift). Beastly.






And here it is in action. This is when Redwing was first launched in June '07. There I was minding my business when I heard the Bull come to life. By the time I looked out the port this Catalina or something was headed my way. I admit I was a little nervous to see a 30-something-foot sailboat swinging around over my boat, but the guy who runs the boat yard is saltier than I'll ever be, even if I live long enough to see a black president.

best invention: edit

I don't know what I was thinking when I said that roller furling was the best sailing invention ever.

Let's get it right, shall we?

The best sailing invention ever is most definitely the self-tailing winch. Take your wraps, slip your line over the tab and around into the groove, and pull. It's that easy. One-handed. It's even possible, if the wind is light, to do this with three fingers while holding an ice cold Budweiser with the other two. Yes, dear reader, it's true.

It also helps guard against oversteering on tacks. I mean, that's not such a big deal when day sailing, but I do like to have good form in case the paparazzi are around trying to catch me off-guard. Quickly get the loose jib sheet into the groove and then crank on the winch handle until the jib looks good all the while keeping your eyes facing forward, and your other hand guiding the boat to the right tack. Nice and easy. Wanna head up? Simply take a few turns on the winch. Wanna head down? Unpinch the sheet, let a little bit out, and then repinch. And you can still steer and beer!

The Great South Bay

Here's a photograph I stumbled upon after a google alert sent me here. This is a great shot that shows exactly where we go sailing. Here's what you can see: dead center is the Fire Island Light House; bottom left corner is the Atlantic Ocean; top left corner is the Captree Bridge and just past that is the Jones Fire Island Inlet; and in the top right corner is the Robert Moses Bridge and the Babylon Cove - home base.

It's funny how big it looks from a 30' sailboat and how small from the seat of an F-16.

Here's a chart of the same area.

New President Day!

Because I am not a defense contractor, nor an investment bank/auto giant/mortgage company looking for corporate welfare, nor a secret unConstitutional wiretapper, nor a big oil company, and because I/we do not make more than $250,000/yr I am happy that we have a new President.

I'm optimistic that All of the People will be the focus.

Be safe, President Obama.

Now, back to the sailing/boatyarding.

While I was bringing the boat to the yard the SBCC was having a race. I always feel bad when I am day sailing while there's a race. It has only happened a few times: at last year's Louis Orr cup (I could only sail in the morning so couldn't race) and again on Molly Malone's day. The trip to the boatyard shouldn't count.

Here's a spies-like-us shot of the race through the binoculars.

29. the end.

After Summer 07 & Autumn 07 & Winter 07/08 & Spring 08 & Summer 08 & half of Autumn 08, the Redwing is back in the 'yard for a well-deserved rest and refit.

one of my favorite shots of the 'Wing:

August 2007.

back barrier lagoon?

"The Great South Bay habitat complex is that segment of the barrier beach and backbarrier lagoon on the south shore of Long Island, east of South Oyster Bay and west of Moriches Bay, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of New York City."

Here is a very interesting document about the wildlife that lives where we sail. It's tough reading because of the very wide margins, but there is some pretty interesting information in there about the physical composition of our beloved bay, er, uh, lagoon. And some details about our fellow Bay citizens: "The most abundant raptors counted, in declining order of abundance, are American kestrel, merlin, sharp-shinned hawk, northern harrier, osprey, peregrine falcon, and Cooper's hawk."

We're not completely sure, but we think this is an osprey. I have never seen one out of its nest, so this is a pretty cool find. I had the presence of mind to get a picture as soon as we saw it, but I wish I had the sense to circle back for a better shot. All we have here is head and shoulders. There are a bunch of osprey nests along the state boat channel; they look like telephone poles with platforms/stages on them, and on the platforms are big osprey nests. The ospreys always seem to be home, watching some SportsCenter I guess (checking the scores for the Falcons or Eagles?), so seeing one of them looking for some lunch is pretty awesome. We took these pictures on 11 October.