Hilton Head Island: a new Southerner; tall ships; fifth highest; from SOLO FACES

 GANNET is now officially a Southerner.

A month ago I mailed the paperwork to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to retitle and reregister GANNET from Illinois to South Carolina, and then nothing happened.  This began to worry me because I had to send GANNET’s Illinois title and registration with my application and without them I would have major problems.  Day after day passed without my check for the modest $20 fee being cashed.  Because GANNET’s electric outboard is the equivalent of only 3 horsepower, I did not have to register it.  Outboards 5 horsepower and greater must be registered in South Carolina for another $20.

Finally yesterday morning I found that my check had been cashed and yesterday afternoon I received the South Carolina title in the mail.  I have not yet received the new registration, but I  know GANNET’s new South Carolina registration number and expect the document will eventually appear.

I am pleased and relieved.

Of my boats only THE HAWKE OF TUONELA had a home port on her stern—Boston.  She was a documented vessel and that was required.  For much of my sailing life, my home port has been The World.

GANNET is not documented, but this is her and my home and in the not too distant future Hilton Head Island will appear on her transom.

I thank Andy for the photograph above of a replica of the NAO TRINIDAD, Magellan’s flag ship, which recently docked at Crisfield, Maryland.

I do not share nostalgia about tall ships and the old days of sail, but she is unusual looking.  I always wonder how with such freeboard, particularly aft, such vessels did not capsize in the slightest breeze.

The TRINIDAD was not the first ship to circumnavigate.  Of the five ships that left Seville, Spain, in 1519, only one, NAO VICTORIA, returned in 1522.  Magellan himself was killed in what are now the Philippines.

At the end of the first year of my open boat voyage, I left CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE in the backyard of a British ex-pat who lived in Suva, Fiji, and Suzanne and I sailed as crew to New Zealand on a Swan 48.  While we were in Auckland there was a Tall Ships Parade.  The only requirement to be a tall ship was that the vessel have two masts.  I regretted not having sailed CHIDIOCK to New Zealand where she could have participated as the smallest Tall Ship.

I thank Larry for this link to an article stating the highest recorded gust of Hurricane Otis of 205 mph/178 knots is the fifth highest ever recorded over land.  That the wind increased from only tropical storm strength in twelve hours is beyond understanding.

https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/205-mph-wind-gust-hurricane-otis-world-record

I am rereading and enjoying James Salter’snovel about a mountain climber, SOLO FACES.  I just came across this:

What he had done, what he would do, he did not want explained.  Something was lost that way.  The things that were of greatest value, that he had paid so much for were his alone.