Bennetts Beneteau

I had the pleasure of sailing with Bennett, Ed and Ian on Bennetts new Beneteau, 37 feet long built in 2011 and quite beautiful and fast.

Ed and I left our cars at the Harlem and got into the rented car at 7:30 A.M on May 30 for the ride up to North Wickford,  RI.  The boat was almost ready to go. But I noticed that one section of the stainless steel tubing that holds up the bimini had come loose from the socket which holds it in place and was dangling, though fortunately the two allen head set screws which clamp it into the socket were not missing. So during Bennetts drive to drop off the car, he picked up a tool kit and the broker went and got his allen wrenches and this was fixed. This repair was at the bottom of the diagonal from the upper right down to the left, to the built in starboard davit.

We also got a bottle of Spray Nine cleaner and took up a lot of the pollen that coated the boat -- another disadvantage of being on the land.

I was all in favor of not dropping below five knots to make sure that I got home reasonably early so as to not miss the flight that Lene and I are taking to Amsterdam today, the day after our arrival. But it was tough at first using the motor only. Somehow we seemed to have good tide at first and good wind later, after we got south of  Point Judith and headed west to home. 

We departed at 1:20 pm and arrived at City Island at 10:20 am the next day, May 31 -- 21 hours for the 130 nautical mile passage, almost six knots. Two rainstorms before dinner, the first light and the second heavy, showed that the new boat is toasty dry inside. I am calling her "the new boat" because her current name is "Ohana" (I wonder what that was all about) and Bennett has not yet selected her new name.

Dinner was fine despite confusion as to provisioning. We had trouble finding the switch that controls the solenoid that lets propane flow from its tank to the burner. We also found that the yard had not done a good job of flushing all of the propelene glycol (pink antifreeze) from the fresh water tanks. The water had a funky taste and smell, so we used bottled water to boil the pasta. And we had only one pot so after draining the pasta (no strainer or pot holders so I used the lid to keep the pasta in and clothing to hold the pot) I poured the jar of vodka sauce (which had been placed in the refrigerator) into the pot and with low heat and stirring it all got warm. The only utensil was a spatula but with it and fork we got the pasta onto plates.  No salt, pepper or grated cheese but it was warm and filled our bellies. We also had confusion about the accompanying salad. We had four prepared packaged bowls of Ceasar salad that I had not known about. And redundantly, we had lettuce, tomato and cucumber, but no dressing for the salad I had planned to make. So I added some of those fresh vegetables to the prepared salad, used its dressing and again, the crew was happy.

 Ian and I were off duty from eight pm until one am. So we missed the passage through The Race, which I was told was made at 7.5 knots speed over ground, near the slack. 

We have tentatively decided that the boat does not have a speedo to measure speed through the water, and no instrument to display such, or at least we have not founds such yet. The relevant speed, except for racers, is SOG, with water speed useful only to know how much positive or negative effect the current is causing. SOG and depth ( and we do not yet know whether depth is calibrated as actual number of feet of water, like on ILENE, or number of feet below the keel, which some prefer) are shown in data boxes on the Raymarine radar/chartplotter display. It is a larger and newer model than ILENEs. 

Bennett has to learn how to use this tool better, which will come with reading the manual and playing with it. We were shown a control for changing the brightness, which must be turned way down at night, but we forgot how to do it and could not figure out how to do it once it got light in the morning whereupon we could not see the screen. But we also had two Ipads with iNavX, so our position, course to waypoint and speed were always known. Our use of the Raymarine unit as a chart plotter had to end earlier when we ran off of the edge of the chart. The prior owner had the electronic chip containing the charts for New England. This extended only to the waters of extreme eastern Long Island Sound and we sailed off the edge it its "known world".

We had experimented with the sails, including the in-mast roller-furled main, with vertical battens, but the wind was either too light and or too much in front of us from the west to be used consistently and so we had motored the whole way until about 3 am when the wind came up on our starboard side in the teens, and we sailed home on a beamy close reach and made up to seven knots.  The boat is beamy and carries her beam well aft making her stiff (stable against excessive heeling) and roomy. Both sails are drawing well but both could use an inch or two of luff tension next light wind day. Their halyards can both be led aft to the cockpit.

She has an interesting and clever hatch board. It has a built in lock at the bottom, is hinged at the top from which it lifts up and aft and then slides in horizontally, forward, under the coach roof. So there is no need to find places to stow the hatch boards and lock. Her built in cockpit table has wide side extensions and a socket in which to plug a detachable electric lamp for evening enjoyment on the mooring.

The propane tank is rather smaller but there is room in the locker for a second one. The locker is a rather flimsy thing with a strap to hold down its lid, located on the deck in the port aft quarter. (To reach it, you lift up the helmspersons seat to starboard and then the port quarter of the cockpit bench tilts lifts up and outboard to port revealing a space for a life raft and the propane locker.) The less rugged construction of the propane locker is not unsafe because in the unlikely event that propane leaks, it will leak out into the cockpit sole and thence flow out over the stern, which is quite open save for two lifelines, and not up across the raised threshold at the companionway into the cabin. There is very little backrest for persons seated on the sides at the aft end of the cockpit and at the helmspersons seat. So at least one of those blue folding seats with back rests will make for more comfortable seating. She has many fewer lines than On Eagles Wings, but most of them are not whipped, so there is still something I can do to be useful during future sails.

Bennett, Ed and Ian on the Harlem launch

All told it was a very easy and pleasant passage and upon returning to the Harlem I drove Bennett and Ian to Bennetts home in NJ. 

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The Metal Boat Festival

The Metal Boat Festival Anacortes, Washington 2013.

August 9-11, 2013

For the past three years I have been going out to the Metal Boat Fest put on by the Metal Boat Society. I have been a member for many years, a commercial member for the past three years, and in 2012 I had the honer to be voted to the advisory board. In 2012 & 2013 I was asked to present at the fest, the topics covered paint repair and refits. If you are interested in metal boats this is the place to go for friendship and good advice. At the fest you will meet owners, builders, and designers such as Dudley Dix, Ted Brewer, John Simpson, George Buehler and others. The 2014 fest will be August 8,9, & 10, 2014, for more information go to:  http://www.metalboatsociety.com/festivalInfo.htm

Listening to sea stories with Ted & Betty Brewer and John Simpson.

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May 12 13 Last Two Lay Days in Washington No miles

No, not a Maritime Museum. This is one of the fishing boats used by the Danes in WWII to smuggle most of their 7000 Jews into neutral Sweden. It is one of the many artifacts in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I spent a whole day (10 to 5:15) here and did not see it all. Designed of the same beautiful pale yellow stone that is used in most other government buildings in this city, the interior has a long atrium around which the horrible history unfolds, as one starts on the fourth floor and works ones way down. This atrium is glass covered and reminded me of a railroad station  -- such an integral part of the Germans "Final Solution". I have been to such museums in NY, Jerusalem and smaller ones in many other cities but none that were as comprehensive, with a significant slant on US responses before, during and after the war. It showed how gradually Hitler came to power, consolidated his power and set to work first trying to drive the Jews out by making life unbearable and dangerous, then deporting them and finally, exterminating them. One huge wall of etched glass, has the names of the numerous European towns where Jews lived before Hitler, including my fathers birthplace, Untergrombach, middle row, right, with my imagined "RR Station" below.

The place was very crowded with lots of high school kids who were very respectful. I was quite moved by the experience. The museum repeatedly discussed the plight of the Roma (gypsies) and other victims. It also had exhibits on the three post-Holocaust genocides: Cambodias killing fields, the Serbo-Croation conflict and Rwanda. It seems humanity has not learned yet, despite the saying "Never Again! We had lunch in the museums cafe, located in a small building outside the Memorial.
Our final day was for Congress and the Library of Congress. We had planned to visit the adjacent Supreme Court as well. I had to be admitted to its Bar to oppose a Petition for Certiorari  in the late 70s. (Since about 95 to 99 percent of such petitions are denied, winning that one was rather easy.) But our tourism stamina gave out before we got there, which was a shame because Lene has never been there. On our way we passed the Frances Perkins Department of Labor Building.

Ms. Perkins was one of FDRs "brain trust" and the first female Secretary of Labor. She co-taught a seminar in labor history I took at Cornell in about 1964.
In 2008 Congress opened a huge underground entrance, visitors center, "Emancipation Hall," with Museum, gift shops, a large cafeteria and many restrooms to handle the throngs of tourists. We were shown an inspirational movie about how well Congress works, which is somewhat of a joke given todays hyperpartisanship. Leah, our assigned

tour guide was energetic and bright with the kids but the tour did not include either house of the Congress. We easily secured a pass to visit the House, which was in session, but just barely. The person acting as speaker recognized a stream of Representatives who rose to give speeches of up to four minutes. It was mostly women in red suits on the Democratic side and men in blue suits on the other side. Several democrats spoke in favor of refinancing the Highway Trust Fund and opposing yet-another bill to restrict abortion, which the Republicans are addicted to and will undoubtedly pass. The Republicans spoke in favor of the anti-abortion bill and in memory of slain police officers. They all spoke to an almost empty room. The speeches go into the Congressional Record and are fodder for the folks back home. "See how I represented your interests!"
After lunch we visited the Library of Congress through an underground tunnel which avoids having to go through security again. Our first time here.

The entrance hall reminded me of The Hermitage in St. Petersberg, with its staircase, marble, red, statuary and grandeur.










The main reading room is much smaller than the one in NY but more elegant.

A highlight of my stay here was a visit to the Geography and Map division, where I was given access to their collection of nautical charts published by the United States Navys  Hydrographic Office from about 1850 to 1950. The charts are numbered, to about 6500, with some omissions. I have been studying them and cataloging them, as a volunteer in the Map Room of the NY Public Library for about seven years now. They describe the coastlines of the world (excluding the U.S. and the Philippines which are the subject of a similar series of charts published by the Coast Guard. Each branch of the armed forces had its champions in Congress and back in the 19th century they worked out this geographic compromise.)  I had a good conversation with the director of the map room who invited me back. Maybe, by land, some day.

I also saw a German antiquarian map of the world, in Latin, published a few decades after 1492, purchased for $11,000,000 (less than half of it taxpayer dollars), an exhibition of Herblock political cartoons, and a recreation of Thomas Jeffersons circular library of Monticello (he sold it to the government) with mostly his original books. He was a well read man.

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