Back On Track

Coxsackie, New York - .5 nautical miles sailed, 3 kilometres walked

Both Perry and I had awoken with ideas and the bleakness and despondency of last night's situation was replaced with optimism and hope.

We talked the ideas through and with a combination of levers (with boards yoinked from a local construction site), ropes, repositioning of the wooden horses, and muscle power provided by two local fishermen (one of whom was strong like bull), we raised the mast up from the dock, then onto the bow pulpit, then fully back in place on the horses. We'd realized the resistance we'd felt last night trying to lift it was because the mast was tied to the lifelines in a place we couldn't see.

The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it had appeared last night. The paddleboard had prevented the mast from hitting the deck or hull. Only one of the stanchions was bent. The lifelines were intact. And the roller furling which I thought was bent and broken actually looked okay. I used a blowtorch to heat up the stanchion and shaped it back into place. I repositioned the mast back into the proper padded space on the arch. I strapped the mast down tightly and secured it to the boat. I tested and confirmed the solar panels were functioning normally. Just as I had finished all this another freighter passed and left a damaging wake (though not as bad as last night) and I shuddered to think what would have happened if he had passed an hour before when we were gingerly undertaking the mast rescue operation. I called him on the radio immediately and explained the mess he was causing. He said he would "make a note" for future passes.

The silver lining? Yes, there always is one. While the mast was down, and with Perry's help, I was able to secure the PVC conduit which had been banging around in the mast in the six months that had passed since it first let go at Langley Air Force Base after a long and bouncy ride on the Chesapeake. Also, we had a cute water snake pass by as we were doing the job. These, were wins.

I had invited the fishermen helpers and Perry and Cathy to SeaLight for afternoon beers as a show of gratitude, but mid afternoon they decided to get off this treacherous dock and make their way up to Albany. And the fishermen, they just seemed to be too busy with fishing. I said goodby to Cathy and Perry and told them they'd get to meet Ana soon, probably in Rochester on our next Lake Ontario boat vacation. Despite only knowing them for a few days, I was really going to miss them. They are real cool cats. And they travel with two actual cool cats on board, though I never actually saw them.

For the remainder of the day I cleaned the boat decks, cleared the garbage off the boat, went for a walk around town, chatted with some fishermen, then threw off the lines and sailed to the nearby protected anchorage, peaceful and safe from ship wake.