Five O'Clock Somewhere

Welcome to Five O'Clock Somewhere, where it doesn't matter what time zone you're in; it's five o'clock somewhere. We'll look at rural life, especially as it happens in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, cats, sailing (particularly Etchells racing yachts), and bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

The boat is in the water

No sailing yet, but we’ve made progress

We had some good racing yesterday and today. Yesterday started out as a drifter, but by the end of the day the wind was pretty stiff. I was on Kachina with Vicky and Maureen, and with Dan as coach. Dan had us rotating positions on the boat, so that even if we had different positions on the eventual team, we could understand what all of the other positions needed. That meant I got all of the bruises: the foredeck bruises, the trimmer bruises, the middledeck bruises, and the helm bruises. Also, by the last race, I was totally thoroughly exhausted to the point that I couldn’t even climb to the upwind side of the boat when heeling.

Then we went to the restaurant at which the sailing club had planned the after-race dinner, at which we had made arrangements ahead of time so the management and staff would be prepared. They weren’t. Many members of the sailing club left after waiting an hour or more to be waited on; others, who had arrived earlier and had placed orders, gave up waiting for their food after two hours and left. We tried to stick it out, but the exhaustion of the day caught up to me and I got sick before the food arrived. Just as we were leaving, the food was ready; the restaurant gave it to us free, but I wasn’t able to eat. I had a miserable night, although in the small hours of the morning I woke up with enough appetite to have a couple of granola bars.

So this morning, we had a couple of races. The air was light, and we did get some good time in on the water.

After the races were over, Larry was afraid the wind would come up, so he wanted to get Black Magic rigged and into the water as soon as possible. So that’s what we did, although Pat was late arriving with the camera, so we didn’t get many pictures. The boat went smoothly into the water, and the new motor started like a dream, and now she’s in a slip alongside the other two Etchells on the lake. We do still have some things to work on, most crucial of which is the backstay, which is frayed and rusted and about to fail. We’ll need to get that taken care of before we can sail. However, we can get the parts shipped overnight, and Larry can get the work done in time for next weekend.

Oooh, the anticipation continues.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to the pictures!

Mon Mar 27, 12:22:00 AM MST  
Blogger Pat said...

And I have them... but the laptop is down at the lake still with Carol Anne and it's the computer best prepared to accept the pictures (it probably has the camera cable and our other computers in Abq. don't read photo memory cards directly).

Mon Mar 27, 11:45:00 AM MST  

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