Yet another Oar Club membership story. -- OarClub

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Date Posted: 16:44:05 10/04/08 Sat
Author: Tom Henry
Subject: Yet another Oar Club membership story.

Hello Jay,

Have just listened to your podcasts on FurledSails.com - great discussion, but more importantly I also discovered the Oar Club! Until now I thought there were few sailing dinosaurs remaining, great to find you and your crowd.

I became an engineless sailor more out of necessity that anything else - as that's the way I learned to sail in my early teens as none of the boats I was lucky enough the be allowed to sail had any engine whatsoever. Having learned that way it was only natural to continue to learn and practice engineless maneuvers as each new boat was acquired.

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As my application/qualifier for membership in The Oar Club I've selected a voyage that was a very special trip because it was with my daughter Jennifer, 13 years old when we started out.

This trip took place in April, 1986, it was intended to be nothing more than a delivery trip, bringing my Olson 30 back home from Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY to our home in Salem, Massachusetts. An expected one week delivery of 295nm on the rhumbline that eventually turned into three weeks of gunk-holing and various adventures that still keep Jennifer and I howling them whenever we reminisce.

Beginning in Oyster Bay, NY, we sailed across Long Island Sound to the Connecticut shore and proceeded Easterly, normally anchoring inside small bays or behind small islets as we had planned to casually cruise/gunk-hole our way home, stopping only occasionally for fresh provisions, to water up, and to check in with the home guard so they wouldn't get overly concerned, no cell phone in those days.

April is very early season in the Northeast and the first week was abysmal, including several days sitting on the hook behind various small islands in really cold rain, foul weather, and fog. We agreed we deserved a break and decided to go ashore somewhere for a real hot meal - meaning more than a one pot special - and much needed personal hygiene.

Our first adventure, at approximately 50nm along our route, was at New Haven, CT. Up to this point, any of the small harbors we entered were desolate, no boats in the water and most not even having their floats in the water at this early point in the season. In failing light we sailed into New Haven to make our assault on civilization, The only place we could see any activity (lights burning) was on the West shore of the river just as you enter New Haven. Since the only dock space was occupied by several large commercial draggers we were forced to lay up alongside and hope the fishermen would tolerate us long enough to get a meal and a wash-up at what looked like a small yacht club on the quay above. On board Jennifer did most of the driving as usual while I handled the sheets, sail changes, dock lines, etc. Well, unbeknownst to us, there were a couple dozen yacht club members watching our approach - our short tacking upwind in the approach channel as well as our docking maneuver on that cold,rainy late afternoon. When we got inside and unpeeled the foulies you could hear a pin drop when the crowd realized that this tiny young girl had been at the helm the whole time and doing a flawless job of it. From that moment onward she was the star of the night, every one of the women wanted to talk to her and only her - demanding to hear every detail of our adventure. Jennifer couldn't quite grasp her notoriety, after all to her she was only doing what sailors do. This was a yacht club wasn't it? We ate free, drank free, and were invited to remain at the dock as long as we wished - with full access to the club house, showers, and restaurant - all on the house. Great stuff for a youngster's self confidence I say!

Our next adventure was approx 120 nm along the route at Turner Point Marina, on Western Shore of Point Judith Pond, about 3 nm up a narrow bay, at the head of Point Judith Harbor, RI. After docking at the empty marina docks, we spent a couple days weathered in, but did celebrate Jennifer's 14th birthday with a lonely cupcake and single candle, the only substitute for a birthday cake I could find in the marina's barren variety store.

Heading onward to Menemsha on Martha's Vineyard was approximately a further 45nm along our route - and we were actually cheered up to only have pea soup fog instead of the usual cold rain. For most of the trip we had lots of DR practice in the fog and currents of Vineyard Sound but were overjoyed when when we came up on the entrance buoy dead on the nose after 12-plus hours of old fashioned chart work - no electronic nav aids on those days. so Jennifer learned her current corrections doing it the old fashioned way. The entrance to Menemsha was upwind and up current between two stone jetties - maybe 75 feet apart. Jennifer really had to suck it up and trust herself to run right up to each granite block jetty before tacking - with no room for doubt that might cause hesitation - needing to insure that her tack would be a good one and we'd get enough way on to cross the outflowing current and and just make the other side safely before tacking again. It was probably only a dozen or so tacks, but each one had to be perfect. She learned a lot about herself that day! Our last tack brought us into the small turning basin where we spied an empty pier, with no floats in yet we could only tie the bow up to the pilings and warp the stern over to another pier, it was a rolly berth but we were happy to be done with the fog.

The next day we sailed out of Menemsha in a beautiful morning sun, running up the Sound to Vineyard Haven where we anchored inside the breakwater and hitchhiked a ride ashore. When the female owner of the local wooden boat shipyard heard about Jennifer's adventure we could do no wrong, they loaned her a dink for use during our stay and when we were finally ready to leave even sold me a like new Avon for $300 bucks to ease the remaining part of our cruise. We enjoyed several days of sightseeing and general relaxing in the first good weather of the trip.

From V. Haven we sailed back down Vineyard Sound, took the shortcut through Wood's Hole Cut to enter Buzzards Bay, then continued Northeast to pass through the Cape Cod Canal, across Cape Cod Bay in a stinking blow, putting in at Provincetown Massachusetts at the very tip of Cape Cod where we again spent several days sightseeing and relaxing in what was very warm weather for the season.

The final leg from P'town to our home port of Salem, Massachusetts was a glorious 45nm reaching, surfing sleigh ride to end our trip. We picked up our mooring in Salem, inflated the new Avon, rowed ashore, called Lucille to pick us up, spending the half hour wait quietly taking it all in. We had done what we dreamed, and had a real adventure doing it.

Postscript...
It was a few days after we completed our trip and Jennifer had returned to school when I ran into the headmaster and he pulled me aside. I wondered if he was going to read me the riot act for keeping Jennifer out of school for two weeks more than the alloted one week of vacation time that had been scheduled for the trip. Instead he told me how initially they were worried when Jennifer didn't return to school after the regular week of Spring vacation, and that after calling our home to check on her and hearing what was going on he and the students at the school began following our journey on maps (not charts) based on the regular updates they obtained from Lucille (mother and wife repectively).

Then he dropped a bomb that I never expected - he shared how he was so totally stunned by the change in Jennifer's demeaner after the trip - she apparently showed a dramatically more confident, self-assured presence and never again seemed to doubt whether or not she could accomplish anything.

It made me rethink, long and hard, about our trip and what about it might have precipitated such a noticable change. When remembering three or four very difficult times during the trip, when we had to work hard together to get through some rather hairy situations, it came to me. I concluded, correctly or not, that what sailing does for kids is to give them an experience that is something very different than they usually experience ashore - on board when things get dicey and one gets fearful, it is still necessary to take action and get the job done. In other words one must learn to function in spite of fear and not be disabled by it. When you learn that you in fact can function in spite of your fear then you have indeed slain a great inner demon.

Thanks for listening, but you can't have enjoyed it as much as I did.

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I hope the above satisfies for what you had in mind as a qualifier for membership in The Oar Club.

Sincerely yours,
Tom Henry
151 Federal Street
Salem, Mass. 01970

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Replies:

Re: Yet another Oar Club membership story. -- SFO Mike, 12:23:31 10/05/08 Sun
Re: Yet another Oar Club membership story. -- jbs, 12:50:52 10/05/08 Sun
Re: Yet another Oar Club membership story. -- Owen, 21:05:03 10/05/08 Sun
Re: Yet another Oar Club membership story. -- Danny, 02:46:31 10/06/08 Mon