Hilton Head Island: unbent; two comments; five poems

 If one bends on sails, does one unbend them in removal?  If so I have unbent GANNET’s mainsail for the first time in six years and about nine or ten thousand miles.

I did so because a week from today Carol is going to drive us to Charleston where we will leave the sails with the North loft there to be cleaned and have a few minor modifications.  The sails came to GANNET while she was in Marathon in 2018.  They are North 3Di sails, laminated not sewn, and I have no knowledge how to clean them.  I do observe that mold lives in the marsh.

Unbending the mainsail on GANNET is complicated.

All of my boats since RESURGAM have had fully battened mainsails and Tides Marine luff tracks to enable them to be raised and lowered easily.  Fully battened mains sometimes don’t.  

The Tides Marine luff track is what complicates unbending the mainsail.

The process requires disconnecting the solid boom vane from the boom and disconnecting the boom from the mast.  In all five fittings with small, fiddly parts have to be removed.

I have done this before with the previous mainsail and it all went as smoothly as possible.

The roughly rolled mainsail is inside GANNET and the mainsail cover is at a local canvas shop for minor repairs.  I will lower the jib in the next few days.

When I go to sea, I go to sea and I disconnect from everyone, with the exception of a few word email to Carol once a week.  

Ashore I communicate.  On my own terms.  No social media.  I actually like email which gives time for a considered response.  I like comments for the same reason.

So here are two responses I made to comments today.

https://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/8396539239718442243/7202333056847037904

And in the YouTube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYTwmVzCJh4

I wrote:

Today is October 18, 2024.  This is the first time I have watched this video in a long while.

I think it does as good a job as possible in reducing a life that has now included six circumnavigations, six marriages, several more significant relationships, seven books and a million or so more words, into nine minutes.  However it seems we have killed the Storytellers project in the first episode.

The video is not mine.  The project is not mine.  I only participated in it in the hope that perhaps some who saw it would seek and read my words who otherwise would not have.  I don’t think that much happened, though the number of viewers may be greater than shown by YouTube. Other websites provided links.  Whether they are counted by YouTube I do not know.

A smart ass claimed bull shit because the location of Sebastian Inlet was not accurate on a chart.  He did not note that so was the location of Cape Horn probably because he has no idea where Cape Horn is.

I first saw the video only a few days before it was released and saw three errors of fact and one sentence I would have liked to have added.  I emailed Johnny Harrington, the director, but it was too late to make changes.

The first error is in the introduction where it is written that I have completed six solo circumnavigations.  I have not and have never claimed to.  Of my six circumnavigations, only three were completely solo.  A fourth was except for a few thousand miles.

The second is in showing a photo of THE HAWKE OF TUONELA and stating it is RESURGAM.

The third is misspelling RESURGAM as RESURGEM.

Some of not great importance, but I have a precise mind and like to be accurate.  And I note that no one else has ever commented on the mistakes.

The addition I would have added is before the comment about having nerve.  I have always prefaced that with “After planning and preparing to the extent of one’s resources nerve is…”

I am about to become 83, older than I ever expected to be.  And time and chance permitting, I may not yet be used up.

Here are the poems.

I read some each morning, some ancient, some modern.  It is a good thing to do providing perspective.  I have never claimed my way is the right way about sailing or anything else, but it has worked for me.  This might be good for you too.

From Tu Fu, 712-770 AD.

And from Robert Frost, 1874-1963.

I think they speak to one another across the ages.  I would have liked to be part of that conversation.