Hilton Head Island: unwrapped; more painted; a dinghy's tale

 

The above was taken a few minutes ago.  Hallelujah!

The bedroom window was partially unwrapped Saturday afternoon. 

I biked down to GANNET this morning and painted the small areas I had missed earlier and when I returned all the plastic had been removed from that window and from the four glass doors in the living room as well.  The door from the bedroom onto the deck which is to the right of the above is still covered as are the doors onto the screened porch, but I am no longer entombed.  I can see out. I can even walk out onto the deck and I have hopes that by this evening all will be completed and my condo will again be my own.

This morning's painting took less than a half hour.  All that is left is to paint the bilge and to sand and oil the wood.

However when I stayed on board last week I discovered that none of the lights in the mast are working.  Not the steaming light on the forward side of the mast nor the tricolor and anchor lights at the masthead.  I went over the wiring this morning.  It is simple, but I don't immediately see the source of the problem.  I will have to go back again and stay after dark, hardly an ordeal, and experiment.

When I was a boy lost in the Midwest, dreaming of sailing, the two magazines were RUDDER and YACHTING.  I read both assiduously.  RUDDER ceased publication in 1977 and the last time I looked YACHTING had become purely power boats.  

After I completed the EGREGIOUS circumnavigation my literary agent sold the manuscript which became STORM PASSAGE and I sold one of my first two published articles to YACHTING.  I prepared one about the rounding of Cape Horn and one about the cyclone in the Tasman and sent one to YACHTING and one to SAIL.  I don't now recall which to which.  This was late 1976 and correspondence was by postal mail.  Both articles sold, but Patience Wales, who was then the editor of SAIL, sent a letter asking me to call her.  I did and SAIL published everything I wrote for the next 25 years.

This has come to mind because Kent recently sent me a link to a charming article which appeared in RUDDER about a small dinghy named WEE PUP.  I thank him.  Perhaps you will enjoy it too.

Read the original 1906 The Rudder magazine article

It was indeed a different time.

I once had a similar small dinghy.  It was the last rigid dinghy I owned.  I solved some of Mr. Thompson's problems by going with Avon RedStart inflatables, which don't make noise or scratch paint when they bump into the hull while at anchor, and by almost never towing dinghies, and always regretting doing so when I have.