Monday was windy. The maximum reading I saw on the TackTick was 26 knots, but it blew 20 to 25 most of the day. Not a day to paint, so I stayed in the Great Cabin and reread KING LEAR.
As I have written here before, my interpretation of King Lear is not just that he is mad, but that when the play begins he is mad and powerful and when it ends he is sane but powerless. That when he comes to his senses he can do nothing to rectify the errors of his madness is the tragedy. Recently I watched a film of a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of the play staring Ian McKellen and directed by Trevor Nunn that emphasized the madness and I wanted to check if my view still holds. I think it does.
Will got by with a lot, considering the times in which he lived.
“Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
An accurate description of most governments.
And: “Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?”
“Ay, sir.”
“And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.”
Tuesday was perfect, sunny, slight wind. I put a coat of Interdeck, International’s nonskid deck paint, on the areas where the genoa tracks and jam cleats had been removed. As I knew it would, it contrasted mightily with the older paint, so I moved halyards, sheets, furling line, running backstays out of the way, taped around the winches and another set of jam cleats, and painted the entire deck. This is the third time I’ve done this in the four years I’ve owned GANNET, but the first since San Diego.
One of the great virtues of small boats is that it only took a couple of hours.
Yesterday was also fine and I painted the vertical surfaces in the cockpit. That took a little over an hour.
Note in the lead photo and this one the vast expanse of clear deck beside the cockpit. A veritable prairie of deck. Well, perhaps not, but in time it will be rolling.
Some sailors don’t like white decks because of alleged glare. I do like them, both for aesthetics and because they are easier to find your way around at night. I have not found glare to be a problem.
I have repeatedly studied my lists. There are two: one of things to buy in the U.S. because they are easier to obtain or cheaper there; one of things to buy and do here. Both are short and, unless I’m completely forgetting something, I have nothing more to do now.
The weather is not promising for the weekend, but I’d like to sail to Roberton Island and climb up to the lookout before I fly back to Carol and autumn two weeks from today.
The weather is not promising for the weekend, but I’d like to sail to Roberton Island and climb up to the lookout before I fly back to Carol and autumn two weeks from today.
