Hilton Head Island: old boats; flat sails; Emily and Will

A sailing friend visited the marina recently to look at a 38’ sloop he is considering buying.  I walked with him and his wife to the slip and was struck by how big the boat looks compared with my memories of EGREGIOUS and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA which were only a foot shorter.  I shouldn’t have been.  I am aware of the trend in boat design toward ever greater interior volume for a given overall length.  30’ boats now have interiors at least equal to 35’ boats built a few decades ago, and I have never owned a boat built later than the 1970s.  

And, as I believe I have mentioned here once before I have never done a sea trial on a boat before I bought her.

I bought my first four boats new.  An Excalibur 26 in 1967 which I never named.  An Ericson 35 that I named EGREGIOUS in 1969. And an Ericson 37, which I also named EGREGIOUS without adding a 2, in 1973.  The two Ericsons I ordered off the plans before they went into production.  The Drascombe Lugger who became CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, I bought having only seen a lugger on a trailer in a driveway in Anaheim, California.  She was delivered in June of 1978 and I set off for The Marquesas five months later in what was probably the most audacious passage into the unknown I have ever made.  After that I became aware of the dramatic difference in the cost of new boats rather than used and never bought new again.  I was the second owner of the She 36 I named RESURGAM who I bought in 1983.  She was built in 1976.  I was I think the fourth owner, one of which was the U.S. Naval Academy to which she had been donated, of the 37’ Heritage OneTon I named THE HAWKE OF TUONELA when I bought her in 1992.  I think she too was first launched in 1976.  And I am I think the fifth owner of GANNET after buying her in 2011.  She is Moore 24 hull #40 of 156 and was built in 1979, and thus the latest built boat I have ever owned.  I had not until I saw the big 38’ and started thinking about my boats realized this.

I don’t claim that older is better.  Obviously it is cheaper and three of my boats—CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, RESURGAM, and GANNET were great boats.  GANNET still is.

Of GANNET I biked down to her the other day and when I opened the companionway the temperature in The Great Cabin was 100F38C.  When I came back to the condo I ordered another fan.

https://www.amazon.com/Caframo-Ultimate-Direct-Cabin-Black/dp/B00NYTN6LE/ref=asc_df_B00NYTN6LE/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693345907102&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13516757977467391859&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&h

It arrived from Amazon the next day and I took it down to GANNET for a test.  It is quite powerful.  It has two speeds.  The lower speed provides a refreshing breeze.  The higher speed is a wind tunnel.

From Dan comes a pleasing story about another old, but not as old as mine, boat that he built that has found a serendipitous home. I thank him for sharing the story with me.

https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/hand-me-down/

I hope that link works.  It did for me the first time, but not the second.  The article is worth reading, and I happened to scroll down the page and found under ‘More From This Issue’ Audrey of Kent and Audrey’s Armada fame wearing a Tilley hat and looking good.

Eric wrote that he is watching YouTube highlight videos of the America’s Cup.   I know the AC is happening but have little interest in anything that cost that much money.  Nevertheless I did watch part of one of the races this morning.  Of course those things—I am not sure they are boats or that is sailing—go fast, but I am most impressed by how flat their sails—or are they wings?—are.  I cannot get GANNET’s sails that flat, but then I am sure they are sails.

For a couple of dollars I bought a Kindle of Emily Dickinson’s Complete Works.  I started reading and quickly discovered that is too much Emily Dickinson.  Although only ten of her poems were published during her lifetime, she wrote almost 1800.  So I decided to let someone else cull them for me and bought 100 POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON.  Much better.  Here is one.

Impressed by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, I bought a Kindle edition of all 154 of his sonnets.  I have added three a day to my morning’s reading.

If I am understanding the first fifteen, they are mostly an effort to try to convince a woman to have a child.  I am suspicious that Will was more interested in the act of conception than in the result.