A bit of fiction to relieve the tension

Just watched the movie "All is Lost" because it had a sailboat in it, and one of my favorite actors , Robert Redford.  If you include the ocean, and a shipping container, then these are all of the 4 characters in the movie, only one that is human.  Unfortunately this is not a sailor's movie, unless you wanted to do a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" event, or a beer drinking game.  Further to my disappointment is that this isn't even a good drama.

I do not place any of the blame on Mr. Redford, other than not stepping in as a Director to resolve what J. Chandor failed miserably at, if for no other reason than to protect his reputation and history of high quality entertainment.

 In listening to the special features of the DVD that I watched I get the sense that the production was all to focused on the technical aspects of the movie and failed in the most primary of concerns, which is to have a story worth telling.  What is almost offensive is that while the production staff pat's themselves on the back for the achievements of scale such as using 3 different but identical real boats, and clean matching of real life footage to CGI footage, filming style choices like not having dialog, it makes such basic errors such as waves coming over the boat that look like stage hands, just off camera, with buckets are throwing them from every direction instead of the more regular patterns and directions that actually occur.  The producers claims to realism are dahsed to piece when we see how effortlessly our 70 year old sailor pulls himself easily up and down a 50 foot mast, and hoe the mast has almost no sway at the top, or how he pulls himself out of the water after being washed overboard, at the bow, and shows no real great affect of utter exhaustion from his effort to save himself.  The list could go on and I think that that is better left as a drinking game for real sailors who might have to take a shot every time something happens on screen that makes no sense to anyone who has offshore experience.  But be warned, you'd be drowned in drink long before anybody on screen is.

Development of a flawed character might have revealed why some of these inconsistencies might exist, but I get the sense that there was no back story to who the main character was or where he was coming from.  This is basic writing stuff and Redford deserves more.  It was good to see him on screen again, good to see the sea, and a boat, but the film is overall not one of the many sea films I would ever want to view again.

The real tragedy for me is that at an age where any movie project might be his last Mr. Redford's career record is being dragged down by the Director's lack of effort to vet his script thru an experienced maritime consultant and to have failed to have given us a real and complete character, story, film. 

#15 longest sail of the season but not in a good way!

Sail #15 should have brought the per sail cost of sailing almost down to $30/sail, instead it has raised the price to a figure I am unsure of yet, as I am waiting for the bills to come in.  I may detail it in a later post but let's just say that I am here to wrote about it, and I am satisfied with that.
The boat is thru sailing for the season, maybe for good, but that is yet to be decided.  Now I just have to get it out of the marina, on the trailer and back home, the rest can be decided later.
It is good to be here to write these words and I have added another experience to my history that will remain in my mind for some time, and that has taught me a thing or two or ten!
As most will be starting their sailing season in the next few weeks and months I am now ending mine for a minute, at least in the Venture.  I hope to be back out on the water in the skiff on the next fair day that I have at my leisure.  Best wishes to all who row or sail for their fun and entertainment and sanity.  Be careful out there.  Reef as soon as you think about it, seek a safe harbor at the earliest point when the conditions begin to build.  Those are words to live by, literally.
Peace

#14

It was just to nice out not to sail a little bit.  The wind was very light.  The water surface only riffled in patches and the current was still coming in.  I figured even if I just sat there for a while at least I will have come out and done all the business of leaving the slip and motoring out of the marina and raising sail, as well as the return and reverse of it all.  After all, it is the working of a sailboat that is enjoyable to me, and even though I love being on a long tack and just feeling the wind on my face, it is actually all the pulling of lines, setting of sail that is interesting and part of the game of figuring out how to trick the wind into taking me where I want to go.
As it turned out I was able to sail, and even make distance to windward and against the tide.  I forget that this boat is much more slippery because of the underbody.  It has so much less wetted surface area than I am used to having on my boats.
With all the sail up that we could muster, the genny and the full main, we coaxed a gurgle out of the wake that the boat cut.  Kind of hard for me to believe really.  On the leg, upwind and across the current we kept the sails just filled but the illusion was as if there was no wind at all.  Still, we made our distance.
I sheeted in the genny just about as far as I could and then before I sheeted in the main I took a line and used it as a cunningham to tighten up the luff and pull out some of the belly of the very blown out sail.  This seemed to work very well and actually gave a pretty good shape.  The telltales on the jib were streaming out horizontally, like they were painted on and the sound of the wake picked up a note.  Pretty good for a 44 year old boat with a used, old, and mis sized mainsail.
Even though it was only an hour or so of sailing it was quite pleasant to not have to wear foulies and gloves and I even took to the shadow of the sail a few times to avoid the sunshine.  That was unfamiliar and made me smile.
We are down to $35 a sail now and the quality of each sail seems to be on the increase!
The marina is starting to get active.  The power boaters have begun to return.  Why do they always seem to have such mundane, jejune, names on their boats?  Anyway, soon my time in the slip will be up and it will be just as well as I will start to be unhappy when going to the marina at the thought of the people who will be showing up in increasing number.
I suppose I should go over the trailer soon and make sure it made it thru the winter alright.

#13

Got out early today to take advantage of the wind that was blowing.  On days like these it seems normal for the breeze to die away as the sun warms up everything around, and that is just what it did today.  I did get to go thru a range of sail combinations.  I started out with the working jib only and ended up with full mains'l and the genny.
With today's sail I have got my costs down under $40/sail.  With 14 days left till the end of my winter contract I think I can get that down a bit more.
Though it is warm out, the high 50's f and sunny, the river banks still have that depressed winter look to them with the trees all brown and grey and no visible grass yet.  Even so, the birds are plentiful and talkative and the sun is bright in a brilliantly blue sky, so it all feels hopeful and good.

sail #12

Today felt like the day that the real cold of winter left us for the season.  Something about the height of the suns track in the sky and the warmth of the ground all seems to point to the end of a very long winter.
I set out on my 12th sail of the winter season today.  I made a triangular course of the bay, starboard tack, then port, then downwind.  The wind was out of the south, against the ebbing tide and it had quite a long fetch to build up the waves that made it a bouncy raucous sail.  I sometimes hear people talk about sailing and say how peaceful and quite it is.  I always wonder what their sailing must be like and what they might think of a sail with me.  Though I do find the sound of being under way comforting, I do not find it quite.  In fact I very much like the sound of sailing and have a strong association to those various sounds of a boat underway.
There is of course the sound of the hull making it's way thru the water.  That can have many different qualities depending on the day and conditions.  There is also the sound of the wind passing thru the rigging and past my ears.  Then there is the boat.  The boat is never quite, and the hull seems to amplify any sounds made in the rigging or from gear shifting or from the water as it passes by or pushes against it.
Today's sail was with the working jib alone and I did get it to tack easily enough.  The wind was probably about 12-15knots and there were lots of waves swelling and breaking because of the contrary tide.  It all made for great fun.
I have to say that the addition of a bit of shock cord to the tiller and run to each gunwale has made the steering of the boat so much less squirrelly. I sometimes just have the shock cord friction against the tiller and other times take  turn around the tiller.  With this set up I can get away from it to tend to the boat for a few moments with out the boat immediately heading up or off.  I can, when the sail is trimmed right and the heading is right, sometimes walk forward and leave the tiller all together with this set up.
Only 2 and a half weeks left of the winter slip rental.  Still undecided about taking a slip for the summer but I am leaning away from it.  It just seems a bit much to spend on larking around on the river, especially considering that I can now trailer my boat.
Still nice to have the river to myself.  This won't last much longer now that the season has turned, I am sure.

The Right Rite of Spring

Spring sprung yesterday, and magically, or maybe not, I got to sail yesterday too.  The ice had been clearing over the past 4 days or so and I have been watching and waiting for the moment that seemed right to go down to the docks and restore the outboard to it's proper place on the stern of the boat.  Yesterday was warm but rather breezy and I wasn't sure that I'd do much more than get the boat set up by putting the motor back on and checking out all the rigging.
The wind was out of the west and gusty and that meant that I could just beam reach up and down the river, hugging the eastern shore to get some shelter from the land.  But this always means that the gusty shifts are stronger as they are affected by the land features.  Using just the staysail as the jib we probably averaged 4 knots the entire time and only once got the rail close to the water.  Mostly it was just nice sailing, with a cool wind, but a warm sun.
It was about 3 months without sailing, almost literally the whole of winter, to the day.  I always get a little nervous about beginning to get sailing again after being away for so long.  Mostly it is because of having to negotiate the marina, which is a tight space and has to be done under power of the motor.  Sailboats are not designed to be the best under motor power, but this little boat is better than the Bristol.  I think it has to do with the Venture being lower in the water, it has much less freeboard, and having no canvas dodger to catch the breeze and be blown sideways.  If the Bristol where a heavier boat it might be a bit less affected by cross winds and such when under power, but it weighs in at a light 6600 pounds.
Another large difference in the ease of handling the Venture is the placement of the outboard motor.  It being on the transom puts it next to the rudder, instead of behind it, as on the Bristol.  When the prop is behind the rudder steering in reverse, as one does when leaving a berth, is very difficult.  The wash from the prop pushes the rudder over hard and makes subtle steering almost impossible.  If the motor was steerable on the Bristol, which it is not due to it being in a well instead of accessible like the transom hung position on the Venture, then the tiller could be made fast and the steering could be done with the outboard.
I have about 25 more days left at the marina under my current contract.  I have to decide wether or not to try to purchase a slip for the summer.  The price is more than I really think is reasonable but I do benefit so much from having a boat in the water and ready to go.  I'd have to sail 25 days a month for the entire season to equal the cost of just launching at the ramp when I want to sail.  I'd like to be sailing that much but I don't think it will happen.
I do believe I would sail more by having the boat in the slip and ready rather than having to hook up the trailer, drive to the launch, step the mast and rig the boat, & launch, all before I get to sail each time.  There is also the benefit of being able to just go to the boat, even just to sit and be on the water that makes the marina an attractive idea.
According to the calendar, Spring has begun, and according to my boating meter, Spring has begun.  It was a happy coincidence.

Frozen messing about

After a week of snowy days and frigid nights
down below everything was dry and cozy-ish.

Simply messing about in small boats is usually enough to keep me happy.  Oddly enough, two days ago, when I was doing just that, messing about that is, and it was beginning to snow again, I was pretty happy.  The gray sky and the wind and not much in the way of fresh water but quite a bit of snow and ice, all made me happy because I  was at the little boat, even though we wouldn't be sailing.  The docks were a bit tricky to negotiate as the snow was almost 2 foot high and rounded on top, giving one the feeling that I was going to slip right over and into the water, er, ah, I guess I mean onto the ice.  I reasoned that even if I did fall off the dock I'd probably not go thru the ice as it was pretty thick.  Any other reasoning just made me uncomfortable.

After shoveling the snow off the boat it rose up about an inch on it's lines.  The snow was wet, heavy and icy.  From the cockpit I could see the few other boats in the basin and many others on the hard.  I could hear the clanking of halyards against aluminum masts from the boats who's owners weren't considerate enough to cat off their lines.  I could see a few sea gulls gliding on the wind and one bald eagle on an ice floe out on the river.

Even though I was only sitting on a boat that wasn't going anywhere soon, I was quite a bit happier to be floating, on a boat, my boat, a boat that I hope within a month will be sailing thru not so frozen water.  That was enough to make the snow blowing down my collar not so cold or uncomfortable, but really just a bit silly.  Sometimes just sitting and daydreaming about things I am pretty sure will come, is enough.  For now it has to be because our world here is still frozen and buried in snow and ice.