Man's best crew

I've been extremely busy with "life" lately and haven't had time to write much. In my absence, I want to share something that made me smile, which hasn't happened much lately. We have two dogs and enjoy taking them on the boat with us, but they're definitely not this helpful while on board! Enjoy - and have a great holiday weekend!

Finally!

Last summer I started crewing on a friend's boat in the Wednesday night races on the Patapsco River. They have a beautiful Jeanneau 33iP named Étoile (pronounced ey-twal) that is only a couple of years old. Like most racing associations in North America, we race PHRF so all the different boats in the area can have fun competing against each other. For those of you who don't know, PHRF is a handicapping system that attempts to level the playing field between boats of different sizes, designs, and manufacturers. The PHRF system is somewhat controversial among racing sailors due to the arbitrary way that the numbers are determined.

Last year we were getting beaten like a drum every week, partly due to the fact that there are very few boats of this make and model to help the regional PHRF officials compare for a proper rating. Our handicap number was too low, and we were losing ground every week. Going back through last years results, we were near the bottom of the standings every week. Over the winter, the owners of Étoile, Marcel and Barbie, appealed to the local PHRF regional association with all of their race data and supporting documentation. They were trying to illustrate to the board that our rating of 120 was too low. After much back-and-forth, and comparable rating info to other Jeanneau boats of similar size in other regions, the board relented and assigned Étoile a new rating of 144. That works out to an additional 24 seconds per mile of time taken off after the finish.

Also, over the winter Barbie and Marcel outfitted Étoile with a new set of Fusion M^® carbon fiber sails from Quantum Sails Annapolis. These sails are night and day different from the stock sails provided new with the boat from Jeanneau. It's like the difference between buying a suit off the rack at the department store and going to a tailor to have a suit custom made to your exact measurements using only the finest materials. These sails fit perfectly and the boat performs so much better with them. The purchase was definitely money well spent.

Étoile crossing the finish line with a very happy crew!

This past week, in our first race of the year, we got off to a great start, picked the right side of the course, and stayed out of the worst of the foul tide that was fighting us. We noticed that the leading boat, Cecile Rose, rounded mark 1 on the port side. The route sheet specified a starboard rounding. More on that in a minute...

We managed to stay within a reasonable distance of the leaders and did not allow anyone to overtake us. We crossed the line 3rd overall. Cecile Rose was ultimately penalized with a RAF (Retired After Finishing) for rounding a mark the wrong way. Basically, RAF is used when a skipper breaks a rule during the race and does not take the necessary penalty turns before finishing. RAF is sort of like forfeiting the race. The second boat across the line, Caribbean Magic, had a lower handicap number than us which meant that on this night they owed us over 5 minutes in corrected time. When the dust settled, the RAFs and handicaps were applied and we had slipped into the lead by 20 seconds. Somehow we had pulled off a win! First place on corrected time! What a great way to start 2015. Now we just need to keep it going...

Karma's a "you know what"...

I'm sitting in traffic waiting at a red light waiting to turn to port. There are 2 lanes dedicated for port turns and one lane for going either straight or to starboard. I'm the fourth vehicle in the left lane amongst a LOT of cars.

The light changes to green and the first 2 cars in my lane move along. The guy in front of me is just sitting there. After a few seconds I give one of those polite little beeps on the horn. You know, kinda like “Pardon me, my fellow traveler. The traffic in front of you has departed and I'm not sure why this wasn't obvious to you, but perhaps now you might endeavor to get along as well so we all don't have to sit through this damn light again”.

I can see his eyes rise up to the rear view mirror and then drop back down towards his lap. Either he and his navel are deep in a very important conversation or he's texting. He either didn't notice that the light has changed and the cars in front of him are long gone or he is just an inconsiderate jerk. Either way, the light is green dude, lets get moving. So I lay into the horn in one of those prolonged blasts as the people behind me join in with their own chorus of horn blasts.

It's about this time that I realize that one of the cars in the adjacent lane has stopped next to me.  I look over and its a uniformed officer in a marked car. Right at this moment the genius in the car in front of me sticks his hand up through the sunroof and flips me off while still clutching his cellphone as he pulls away. I turn my head and pull my sunglasses down on my nose and stare over them at the cop. He gives me a smirk and pulls ahead of me as we make our turns.

He then proceeded to pull Mr. Cellphone over. While being fortunate to witness Karma dishing out a dose of cosmic justice I still had to gloat a bit. As I slowly rolled by Mr. Cellphone I gave him another toot on the horn and when he looked up I held my hand to my head and gave him the international sign for “call me”.

I'm pretty sure the rest of my day will be better than his.

Picture This: USCG Barq Eagle

Yesterday while out for a sail on the bay, I caught a glimpse of the Eagle as she was departing Curtis Bay, headed for New London, CT.

You can see more about the Eagle here: USCG Eagle

In Memoriam

In memory of Jeff Schiding

December 22, 1963 - April 10, 2015

December 22, 1963

December 22, 1963

December 22, 1963

Jeff at the helm of Serenity with Sophie on the lookout

In life we cross paths with many people who have an impact on us. Jeff Schiding was one such individual for me. I first met Jeff in 1999 when we worked in the same department at work. He always seemed like such a happy-go-lucky person, with an outsized personality, but with a touch of chicken little. Anyone who knew him will know exactly what I mean by that.

Jeff and I became fast friends and after spending hours in a server room working on computers, we soon discovered via our conversations that we both had a love of sailing. He always referred to himself as a wannabe sailor, because he had spent the majority of his sailing time in dinghys and small sailboats. More recently he had acquired a derelict Catalina 22 and lovingly restored her to usable condition. The boat's name is Serenity.

Over the years we would work together for a while, then one of us would change departments. We went on like this until 3 years ago, when I came to work with him again. It was at about the same time that I began the process of acquiring my current sailboat, September Song. Jeff was clearly very excited for me that I was making this big step, and was so interested in every little detail. After my purchase was finalized, Jeff was the very first guest I had aboard for the shake-down cruise. It just so happened that we had a very "interesting" time trying to dock the boat in a slip at Ego Alley in Annapolis. Since that day, Jeff would take delight in telling the story to all who would listen when the subject of my boat would come up. Whenever he would launch into the story to some new person, I would always cringe a little inside, knowing that it revealed some not-so-great seamanship skills on my part. Now I wish I could hear him tell the story just one more time...

We spent hours talking about my boat, maintenance, problems I had encountered and fixed...  He joked with me that someday he would be buying my boat, as he knew the maintenance history and was fairly certain that he could negotiate a fair price.

He was proud of his family and spoke all the time of his wife Jenn and son Zack. Recently they found out that Zack was accepted to Penn State University. That was definitely a great day for Jeff and his family.

Very recently, he had begun his own odyssey of yacht purchasing. He was in the midst of a search and had enlisted the help of a yacht broker to show him some boats. On April 9th, I accompanied him to look at a 32 footer that he was interested in. By the time we left the yard that day, it seemed like he was ready to sign a contract. He was on cloud nine. It was the last time I would see him.

On Friday April 10th, just one day later, Jeff took the day off from work and was home by himself. Sometime that morning, he suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. He was 51 years old. They found him on the sofa with his laptop open on his lap. No doubt looking at sailboat listings...

What is dying? - By Charles Henry Brent

"What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from the horizon,
And someone at my side says, “She is gone!” 
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “She is gone”,
There are others who are watching her coming,
And other voices take up a glad shout,
“There she comes” – and that is dying.”

In the fall of 2014, Jeff's father had passed away after a long battle with cancer. I like to think that the person standing on the shore watching him arrive was his Dad. Reunited with family. That is all we can hope for when someone passes. That they find peace and comfort on the other side.

Rest in peace, my friend, rest in peace...

From the Pensieve - Memories of Dad - Installment 2

In early February of 2015, my father passed away. In preparing for our remarks at his funeral, my brother Carl and I began putting together short stories of our times boating with Dad. In the interest of preserving these stories, we thought it would be a fun exercise to share them here as a series of blog entries. Over the next several weeks, new installments will appear on occasion.

Today's entry is a guest post written by my brother Carl. 

The Dinghy 

Doug keeping watch on the crab lines

When I was a kid, my dad had a series of sailboats and eventually settled on a Coronado 25, naming it “Legato III”.  With Dad’s love of music and singing, the name Legato was a perfect fit – a musical term meaning smooth and flowing. Both my brother Doug and I can honestly say that we have been sailing since we were in diapers, with a total of over 100 years of sailing between us, technically speaking… And boy did we have a charmed life growing up boating. Overnight trips all around the bay with Dad and Mom, Mom prepping our sandwiches and iced tea before getting underway in the morning, Dad navigating us to all corners of the bay, us boys rowing the dinghy far out of sight of the mother ship at anchor (and we survived…), dipping crabs from the surface of slate flat water while motoring to our next destination, and sometimes overcoming adversity along the way.

Carl rowing the old dinghy with Fritz navigating

Oddly enough, the family dinghy in the early years was a 10’ wooden rowboat. Our 25’ sailboat, towing a heavy wooden dinghy, certainly lost a knot of speed in the process. The dinghy dated back decades, as the tender for my Grandfather’s 50’ yacht. So every year Dad would painstakingly scrape and repaint, repair, and replace. That dinghy gave Doug and I the freedom to explore many an anchorage and beyond.

On one trip at the mouth of the Chester River we were slammed with the typical fast moving Chesapeake squall line with 50 knot winds that whipped up 4’ seas. Mom, Doug, and I were down below hanging on, mostly oblivious to the struggle topsides, while Dad was motoring as fast as he could to duck into a creek for shelter. As we crested a wave, the dinghy painter snapped and he helplessly watched as it drifted away from the boat. He yelled “Carl, get up here, now!” I scrambled on deck, in the driving rain and wind, and he showed me what had happened and said “Put this life jacket on. I’m going to turn this boat around and get right up close to the dinghy. You keep this line in your hand, and when we get close enough you jump into the dinghy. Then weave the line through the stem hole and tie your best knot around the bench seat.”

So I’m 12 years old, and not knowing any better I went along with his plan. And damn if he didn’t get us there, I jumped, and tied, and somehow managed to get BACK in the sailboat - all still in 4’ seas and driving rain. But that’s what sailors do. Dad’s calm and determined demeanor was what made it seem like such a piece of cake. And I like to think that was a coming of age of sorts for me…

Alex and his friend enjoying the restored El Toro

Even though we saved the dinghy that day, soon thereafter Dad purchased an 8’ El Toro sailing dinghy. Being fiberglass and much lighter, it towed wonderfully. The sailing rig was put to use by all of us at anchor and around our home creek. The great thing about the El Toro is that after being in mothballs for decades, I just recently cleaned it up, re-rigged a few things, and it’s now used by my own boys. Not bad for a 40 year old dinghy!

Editor's note: Carl told a shorter version of this story as part of Dad's eulogy recently. Later in the day, at the wake, I asked Mom how long it was before she heard the story about Dad putting his 12 year old son into an unsecured dinghy during a thunderstorm. Her answer: "Well, let's see, Carl is 55 now, and he was 12 then, so that makes it 43 years - today was the first time I heard that story! We were closed up in the cabin, so I had no idea what was happening out there that day."

I thought that answer was really amazing.

From the Pensieve - Memories of Dad - Installment 1

In early February of 2015, my father passed away. In preparing for our remarks at his funeral, my brother Carl and I began putting together short stories of our times boating with Dad. In the interest of preserving these stories, we thought it would be a fun exercise to share them here as a series of blog entries. Over the next several weeks, new installments will appear on occasion.

Some of the earliest memories I have in my life revolve around boating. I know for a fact that I was still in diapers the first time I set foot on a sailboat. From the picture here, it's clear that Dad started out on boats while he was still in diapers as well. It's in the blood. I'm pretty sure that my brother Carl and I both attribute our love of boating and being on the water to Dad's love of the bay and sailing. We spent many happy hours at our grandparents house on Stoney Creek, swimming, sailing, rowing, and just being at the beach.

So, naturally, over the years, I've had a few sailboats of my own. In 2012, Janet and I bought our current sailboat. Soon after the purchase was finalized, Dad, Carl, and I gathered in Annapolis one beautiful Saturday morning to deliver the boat from Annapolis back to our home marina in Pasadena. I had spent the night alone on the boat, in a slip on Ego Alley. Dad and Carl arrived early in the morning and we shoved off for home.

As we sailed the boat up the bay, the three of us took turns at the wheel. It was a perfect day. The kind of day on the bay that just makes you glad to be alive. The breeze was just the right speed, the seas were relatively calm, and the bay was full of sailboats, streaming out of Annapolis - all headed somewhere different, or in some cases, headed nowhere special. Ask any sailor and he will tell you - anytime two sailboats are heading in the same direction, there is a race. We can't help ourselves. There were numerous sailboats headed the same way we were and we had a fun time trying to pass as many of them as we could. The three of us, working together, all experienced sailors, needed few words to communicate the actions being taken. Sail trim and helmsmanship working in concert to glide us along smoothly.

It seemed like every time Dad was at the wheel, the boat went a little faster. At first I thought it was my imagination. So the next time I handed off to him, I checked the speed on the GPS. Sure enough, the speed picked up by almost a knot within a few moments of him taking over. Those of you unfamiliar with sailing may not be very impressed with a 1 knot speed increase, but keep in mind that at a speed of 4 knots, a 1 knot increase is a 25% improvement. 

Over and over, through the rest of the 20 mile trip, I witnessed this same thing whenever he took over. Later, when we were safely docked, I asked Dad about the speed increases that I noticed. He looked at me, winked, and said "I taught you most of what you know about sailing, but I didn't teach you everything *I* know." Maybe someday I will figure out what he was doing.