ALL HANDS It's Monday. Must be Oct. 21st
but it does not fit my log. Going backwards. I got to Scituate town Landing at 5pm on the 17th. I was still there on the 19th. Took off thru CC Canal to secure in Fairhaven where the log says 10 18 88. But next entry says 19 was my arrival in Sandwich--probably ok. Left there at 0500 hrs on 20, after being chased off the gas wharf and securing to piles in the mooring basin. That all seems ok. Left that mooring 2ble reefed to fly down to Fairhaven where I stayed 2 days and 1 night. So I must have left there on the 21st, at dusk. Going very fast down-wind, a big sea and gust combined force to knock me down about midnight. The boom dipped and the resulting bag of water was too much for it. It broke at the sheet fastening--End of the World. Jib luffed so hard that its sheets chafed thru and in 10-15 minutes it was in rags. No way I could get out and lower it. Even going forward was very difficult.Now it's 6 Nov.Seas still building as I hauled in the after end of the boom and generally secured the vessel. Big but not breaking. At least mostly not breaking--l got dowsed a couple of times as I worked amidships, but going fwd to clean up there was out of the question. Bowsprit dipping quite deeply and tossing water aft as it rose. Too late to save the jib anyway. Get out of the weather before it washes you away! I snugged down. Hot cocoa, which wasn't easy, and tied myself into a berth already pretty wet, but not as wet as I was. Took off FW gear and nothing else to roll and bang all night. Not cold at least but poor sleep at best.
Full sun-up the wind let up some but the seas didn't get the message. Big, big, big. Very difficult to do anything constructive; imminent disasters all around. So I laid a-hull all day, coping with the Next one, trying to foresee the Second Next, while I was creating the Third--sugar on the deck, head left open and over-flooded, plastic bags suddenly adrift and soaking wet; a few green ones (seas) and a lot of spraying in the cockpit. Did a bit of pumping and it looked like a bad leak for a while. Nope. No reason to give up the ship YET. All the time trying to figure whether to push on 500+ miles to BDA or turn back to States for assist. All Batteries OFF and some idiot lights were ON!! How come? NO answers. Real problem too. Must be a gremlin cranking up electric to confuse me. Finally figured out that it HAD to be one battery hooked up backwards, or a well-fastened short. NOPE. It can't be a short with all batteries shut down. Tried Engine. No response. Back to charts. Where to head for? Montauk looked good. Best course I could on the port tack. How good were its facilities? No answer.
Give it a go. I might fetch it under jib + jigger, using storm jib on the inner stay that Colie insisted on my carrying. So I rigged that but I didn't raise sail yet. Got an Idea that I could sail w/o a boom by hauling the clew down to the foot of the mizzen. So unfasten the foot of the sail, re-fasten the reef point to keep the foot tight, and button it up tight and give a try. Mizzen first but reefed, then the main, double-reefed and rolled up.
Late again. But to keep on from here, I did pretty well with the jury rig. Took most of two days to rig it. Laid a-hull till then, not terribly rough but all 'hold-on' weather. Finally got it going, sailing west + north which-ever seemed appropriate in the winds that came. Two days and a night got me to a lit-up horizon. Saw it in early evening as a dark line that might just be a fog bank. Nope, lights went on presently. No way to identify at that distance, but it looked to me like the South Shore of Long Is. Spent the night on stbd tack, heading towards the most distant lights. Very slowly, which would have been my choice if I had one! Snooze a bit, then look for a change. Not much. Snooze and look a dozen or so times. Fishermen, two of them steaming in to somewhere, course about N. Tack over and follow. Yup, I could just make N.[in Bermuda on 11/21/88]Daylight and I'm still confused. Some sun too, but a latitude shot was what I needed. Check the chart very soon, showed me in Newport. Benton Reef Tower presently, and in. Easy landing on the state pier in Jamestown. Hey, I'm alive and well and even Safe! Ashore to find out Nothing. It's a marina. Very busy. Taking in boats for the regular customers, can't even bother collecting rent from me!
A short period of relief gave way to real down-in-the-mouth. Moped for half a day. Sulked, maybe. Nothing works for me; I screwed it up again. Enough to eat anyway. Big hot lunch on board. Then Jim Wilkie showed. Short, fat, and Bald. Talked boat with me for a moment. He had a boat carpenter. Called him up directly and in an hour or two we were on our way up to Louis in Jim's pick-up, carrying the pieces of my boom, Easy. Louis could get fir, no strain, he could glue up a spar for me. I'd have to finish it and put on hardware. He had little time since he had to show in Maine to do a big job on a yacht. Bingo. Two days it was done. Jim was showing me around all the time in his fancy new Chevy pick-up. He eats a full meal 5-6 times a day and little lunches between. Not regularly employed, rakes quahogs now and again. He insisted on using his living room to work the boom in. OK, warm too. Deane, his wHe, works in a group home nearby, days only.
Paint, 1st coat the day (Fri) we brought it back from Louis. Then it went very fast. The old hardware fit perfectly. I had to taper and smooth, but not much. 2nd coat over the hardware. Meantime Paul (Waltham electrical honcho) came. Drove all the way down on Sat am to find the gremlins. He says he had to do it for his sake! Would only charge me for the switch he put in! Wouldn't even let me take him and Robin to lunch. (Robin is very pregnant with their first.) So l've got a new electric system COMPLETE now. Still no one volunteering to find the air in my lines. I can get the engine to run but only a few minutes before I have to bleed again. And it gets to be less and less time between blood-letting!
Jim has some leads, doesn't seem to be following them up and won't quite turn my life back to me! He got me out of a great mess very quickly and very cheap: $150 for the boom, a couple of lunches and $10 worth of gas. If the yard had done it I'm sure it would have cost $500-800. Worse than that I'd have had to sit on my itching fingers for a coupla three days doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself, working my way into a real black cloud. As it was I was busy, doing what I'm confident at doing. Got the boom on the boat, gave it a third coat of paint. Refreshed my hardware supply at J'town Distributors which is a big-time Marine Hardware Store.
But NO engine mechanic. So I took the bone in my teeth and motored across the harbor, or rather 1/2 way across, where the engine died and wouldn't bleed! Actually wouldn't pump up fuel. Not because of air leaks in the suction, but because the filter was clogged tight! I should have figured that out, it's happened to me before. Well, a lobsterman dragged me across and put me on a mooring, lots of empties now, and told me to call OID Port Marine on Ch 68. Out they came, couldn't do a thing right now, busy hauling boats! But l'll have a look if you can wait, wait, wait. Begged a ride in on his workboat. Telephoned, made arrangements for tomorrow. Had a gorgeous shower at the Seamen's Institute, Ran my clothes thru the dryer, no dirtier than usual but sopping wet. Don (the boss of OID Port) came out next am to drag me over so the mechanic wouldn't have to boat around. We started off the mooring, strong wester blowing. Got outside Goat Is. and the tow line let go on Don's end. I passed over one of mine, wrong side of the forestay. Don turned back and put me on a different mooring, better sheltered and belonging to OID Port. Suspicious rising in my gut. Not much I could do either. Then he decided to have a look anyway. Pump's not pumping. Checks all the lines, let a little fuel drip by gravity. Blew out the filter and knew right off what the difficulty was. Charged off to his shop for a filter, and power returned to my Volvo. Simple--only a half-wit could miss it -ME. And he wouldn't charge me either. $6 worth of rides, a tow, 3 filters (now I have spares), a couple of hours of his time--less than $20. Would have been vastly more if he hadn't interested himself in my saga.
Back to J'town, Volvo roaring happily. Easy landing to make, but I didn't allow for the coming tide, and it swept me a few inches so that my bowsprit hit square on one of the pilings. Bashed the end, absolutely crushed it! Lost my Louis to Maine, J'town's too busy to take my money. Go back to Don, 'Tell you what, come on over and we can put you on one of the floats we are taking out. That way you can stand and work on it but we haven't any spare manpower.' OK, OK, OK. Fast as I can. And I cleaned off the wrack, shortened the bowsprit 7" to new wood, shaped it up to fit the hardware. Shortened the chain bobstay. Don showed my a "Navy" splice which shortened the forestay. And Presto, I'm in like Flynn. Got some shopping in too. Big market up the hill 1/2 mile. Hard walk for me, good supplies. Back to J'town in the am after fuel and water (J'town water is chlorinated out of tolerance). Got my jib, which Nat Wilson had built and shipped by air or next day whatever to Jim's address. Now I'm off the wharf on a mooring and ready to go in the am.
This wait is perhaps the most fortunate delay I ever had. Last three days have been over 40 kn and 50, 60 hrs of Gale warnings. I'm still disgusted with me, but better off than I was. Maybe by the time I get to Bermuda I'll be human again.
Not too good physically either. The pain in my belly seems to be a hernia. And that wants being careful of.