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The Red Dwarf’s First Year
Click Here to contact Jinnie Gordon by email I have been sailing and racing on other people’s boats since I was four years old. I had gotten to the point where I thought I knew everything – then I bought my own boat. This is the story of my first year as a boat owner, and as I write it, I find myself mystified by all the mistakes and blunderances I made.
In February of this year, I lucked into a beautiful boat at a great
price. Before signing the dotted
line I had crawled all over the boat with a fine tooth comb (or should I say a
screwdriver and a rubber mallet). I knew that there were a lot of things that I
wanted to change, but I was undaunted at that point.
The boat was sail # 1132, red, with no name on the hull (I learned that
its previous name had been Boofit and last raced in the ’81 World’s), so I
christened her Red Dwarf.
When I finally got the boat into my own driveway in mid March, I was
actually looking forward to working on the keel.
I sought out the advice of some trusted friends, then put on my mask and
gloves and set to work with my grinder. I
would do a little bit in the morning before work, and a little bit in the
evening after work, and a whole lot on the weekends.
By the time I put on the last coat of VC-17 it had been nearly four weeks
of hard work.
My goal was to have the boat up and racing by May – a goal which I
accomplished, little did I know that each race was to become an adventure.
The first race (Wednesday night club races in Niagara-on-the-Lake) I got
down to the dock with two friends Jen and Jeanette (who were by the way, very
new to sailing). The wind was
blowing quite steady, so at the last minute I invited an experienced crewman
Martin, to come out with us (he had just missed his own boat).
Thank-you Martin. We got out
of the river mouth, so I told the crew to raise the main.
As I struggled abit with the borrowed motor, I turned to see the main
halfway up – under the boom( I guess I had wrapped it around that way myself
in eagerness the day before) So down it came, and up it went.
As we started the race 5 minutes behind the rest of the fleet I heard an
annoying flapping sound from the main, and looked up to see that there were no
batons, oops.
Second race I was more prepared (so I thought).
The batons were in and secured with electrical tape, and I closely
supervised the raising of the main. We
got to the downwind leg and I gave the helm to Jen as I crawled forward to raise
the pole. At this point I realized
that the boat was not rigged with pole lines, oops.
I guess were not flying the spinnaker today.
When we were on our way in after the race, I again gave the helm to Jen
so I could show Jeanette how to drop and roll the main.
As I was holding the main halyard in my hand and saying, “don’t ever
let go of this”, a wave hit the boat sending me grasping for the boom, and the
halyard slipped from my fingers and shot up the mast, oops.
The following Wednesday my crew learned how to get the mast down and up
in 10 minutes. We went out racing
with neat new spinnaker pole lines, and had a nice sail but (there’s always a
but on Red Dwarf), after the downwind leg I had attached the spinnaker sister
clips to the spinnaker halyard and was bringing it all around to port when I
suddenly had the entire halyard line on the deck.
I looked back to see that the cam cleats had let go (old springs gone
faulty). So the following Wednesday
the mast came down, and the mast went up ( in 5 minutes this time!)
The rest of the summer went by with only minor glitches, except that we
always seemed to be late for the start (I think my watch was slow).
Red Dwarf was always last, despite my dreams of going out there and
kicking butt.
So the boat sat quite for a week as I went off to the Worlds to crew on
1044 Blade ( a boat I had crewed on for many years prior to my purchase).
So I came back and asked some very experienced sailors to crew for me
(Keith Quigley –Tea For Two#1133 and Dennis who crews with him).
At this point I was starting to doubt my ability as a helmsman, and
wanted to see how I would fare with some very experienced sailors as crew.
We beat five boats that night, and I almost cried.
Unfortunately, the posted results afterwards had me listed as Tea for
Two, after all, it was a red boat with Keith on board.
With newfound enthusiasm I headed down the next Sunday with my novice
crew prepared to drill some lessons into them (our club races move to Sunday
after Labour Day). The wind was
howling, and I could see the fear on the girls faces as they looked out at the
whitecaps on the lake. To ease
their terror, I told them that we would race under the genoa only (an acceptable
practice I’m told). We had a
river start and headed out onto the lake. After
rounding two marks we turned to head upwind.
The boat wouldn’t go that way – she just fought it and kept heading
down, then I remembered that we would have to put up the main if we wanted to go
upwind. So with the wind blowing
like stink, and the huge waves broadsiding us I gave the order to raise the
main. Both girls sat silent looking
at me like I had asked them to jump off a cliff .
As I felt the weather on the helm, I toyed with the idea of passing the
tiller to one of them so I could go raise the damn sail myself, but quickly
decided against it (and I don’t think that I relished the idea of going on
deck too much myself). Oh did I
mention that I really had to use the bucket?
So the Red Dwarf drifted downwind along the US coast.
I had heard that Rochester was a nice place to visit. The girls were both on edge, and I could see the wet and cold
was getting to them. We were really
in no danger; we just could not sail home.
At this point you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just put the
motor on. Well, silly me, we had
gone out without a motor (well. It is a sailboat).
So I instructed Jen to get on the cell phone and call the boat club, and
ask them to send out someone with a motor to get us. Within an hour the US Coast Guard arrived to tow us home.
They were five really cute guys in uniform (the perk of the day).
We got onto their big boat and they let their towline to the Dwarf out
about 80 feet behind. As we bounced
through the now enormous waves, Jen ordered me to not look back at the boat, but
I couldn’t help it. I was
horrified to see the waves beating against her like she was toy, and at one
point the mast was about a foot away from the water.
The Coast Guard captain was sweating profusely, nervous that he might
lose my boat, but we managed to get her home safely (unlike us, who were
extremely wet and bruised from the rough ride).
In an effort to avoid paying the Coast Guard a towing fee or fine, I told
a little lie and said that we had had a motor but I had dropped it while trying
to put it on. As we paddled into
our dock, the Coast Guard waved farewell (with our phone numbers in their
pockets), and I could see all the other sailors on the dock inspecting my boat
to try and figure out what went wrong. We
didn’t say a word. Within a week
though, the motor loss story had gotten out, and one well-meaning man wanted to
know where I’d dropped it so he could send a diving team down for it.
Talk about humiliation.
The next week was a nice leisurely race with Jen and Keith.
When we came in and tied up, Keith and I noticed that I was missing my
bow-light, I figured it was a casualty of the Coast Guards massive tow-lines.
Keith was staring at the bow when he noticed something else.
The forestay pin no longer had a clip through it, and was about a
millimeter away from letting go. Another
casualty, but lucky for us it didn’t come out while we were sailing, I only
have one mast.
The next time we went out was for Homecomers.
We were so excited because it was our first real regatta.
On Saturday I had my two regular novices Jen and Jeanette, and also an
experienced friend Sandy, although none of us were quite prepared for the
weather we encountered. Out at the
start we noticed that almost everyone had up their storm jibs (mine was taking
up space in my garage at home), so we decided that we would start with the main
only. After two tacks we raised the
genoa (yes, the genoa). All was
well until we noticed the smell of gasoline, the really strong smell of
gasoline.
On the downwind leg I lifted the hatch to find the gas tank on its side
pouring out gas, oops. I closed the
tank and secured it, and we finished the first race.
At this point the odour was so overwhelming that I had to do something
about it, so I climbed into the transom and began to sponge out the gasoline.
¾ of a bucket of gasoline. By
the time I surfaced I was green and absolutely nauseous from the fumes.
We did the second race and made the decision to call it quits for the
day, so we dropped the genny and just then the wind picked up.
The mainsheet was ripped from my hand swinging the sail out to the
shrouds. The boom caught Sandy on
the bottom, almost sending her overboard. The
boat was ploughing downwind, nearly out of control in the heavy air.
I tugged at the tiller realizing how sick and weak I was (from the gas)
then shouted the order to drop the main to half.
Then the wind seemed to calm for a moment and I contemplated putting on
the motor (not that there was much gas left in the tank), but the idea of
exposing myself to even more gas was nauseating.
So when the committee boat came over and offered us a tow we happily
accepted.
The second day I had Sheri instead
of Sandy (another experienced crewman, from Fiction) and all was going quite
well. We had a good start, but in
the middle of the first race I was pulling in the mainsheet and the line sliced
through an old wound on my left middle finger, opening it up and spurting blood
everywhere (really, I’m not exaggerating, you should see my gloves). So the
girls scrambled for band-aids and duct-tape, while I kept my eyes on the sails.
The second race got off to a good start, but when we tried to bring in
the spinnaker, it dropped it in the water.
After a lot of yelling (which I think they heard on the committee boat)
we got the genny up and the soggy spinnaker in the cabin.
After two tacks I felt the rudder was abit wobbly in my hand, so I handed
the extension to Sheri and crawled over the back to see what the problem was.
Well, the bottom gudgeon plate had lost a bolt and was knocking back and
forth on one bolt. I searched the transom for the nut but to no avail, so I very
sadly gave the order to drop the genny and told them it was all over ( I think
they might have been relieved). We
were able to sail back to port under the main with me clenching the tiller so as
to not lose the remaining gudgeon bolt.
Needless to say, we came dead last in that regatta, and all came back
with cuts and bruises, but we all had a good time (how does that saying go? –
“sailing is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror”)
With one more club race to go, I feel both ashamed and empowered by my
experiences this year. I’m 25
years old with an all female crew and my boat is still floating.
I’ve ordered my crew to go and take some sailing courses, and told them
that things can only get better ( God – I hope so ). P.S.
- I’d
like to thank all of the people who helped me out this year, especially : John
and Josh Katrynuk (Blade) who hauled my boat around before I had a trailer hitch
on my car, and who cut and welded my huge trailer to fit my boat.
Keith Quigley (Tea for Two) who lent me his beautiful rudder and taught
me so much. Dave McClure (Morgana)
who lent me his motor until I got my own. The race committee on the Empress of
Padagonia who waited so patiently for me to finish the race, and last but not
least, I’d like to thank my novice crew Jen and Jeanette for being brave
enough (perhaps foolishly) to come out and race with me. Click Here to contact Jinnie Gordon by email
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