Sailing 102 The Schooner

Way back in May of 2017 I thought that I would write a few words on sailing a schooner. First of all, few people actually know what a schooner is let alone how to sail one. 

On my schooner, Merrymaid, we normally sailed  around with five sails up. As an aside, Merrymaid was the Middle English word that morphed into Mermaid. I didn't name her. That was her name when I bought her in 1979 and that was her name her when I sold her in 2014. That was thirty five years of unadulterated joy for me. But back to the "How to" part. 

A ketch is, what us  purists like to say, a schooner going backwards. The ketch has two masts, a mainmast in front, and a shorter mizzen mast aft. FYI, a yawl has it's MIZZEN MAST aft of the steering station while a ketch's MIZZEN is forward of the rudder post.

A schooner has it's shorter mast, called a FOREMAST, forward and it's taller MAINMAST farther aft. There is a JIB sail all of the way forward.  Aft of the jib is the FORE STAYSAIL and aft of the foremast is the MAIN STAYSAIL. Above the MAIN STAYSAIL usually is the FISHERMAN SAIL. It spans the two masts and is raised by two halyards, one on each masts. The FISHERMAN has four corners unlike the three on a traditional Bermuda rig. In addition to the TACK and CLEW the HEAD is replaced with a THROAT and PEAK as on a GAFF rig. Lastly there is a MAINSAIL which is hoisted on the MAINMAST. The MAIN SAIL can either be three sided as on a Bermuda rig or four sided if the boat is Gaff rigged.

The trick to sailing a schooner, and yes most every skill set  has it's tricks, is maintaining the "slot". IE keeping the air flow complete all of the sails. I used telltales inserted at two strategic points on the JIB and FORE STAYSAIL. I also had telltails tied onto the outer shrouds of both masts. I initially used two telltails at the luff of the main but after thirty five years I felt I could stop using them. Some people use strips of magnetic recorder tape but I preferred using bright red knitting yarn, it was easier to see. 

The JIB and FORE STAY SAIL telltails were trimmed to keep them all flying straight back, the MAIN STAY SAIL was trimmed so that the shroud telltails would fly horizontally. The MAIN SAIL was trimmed like a main sail as on any other sailboat. The FISHERMAN was trimmed so that it "looked right".

When reaching, which is as good as it gets on a schooner, we took down the FISHERMAN and raised the GOLLYWOBBLER. A  GOLLYWOBBLER is "a very large quadrilateral staysail set between the foremast and mainmast of a schooner". It fills all of the space between the two masts. Because the MAIN STAY SAIL blankets the wind to the GOLLYWOBBLER, we would take the
MAIN STAY SAIL down after the GOLLYWOBBLER was hoisted. The TACK of the GOLLYWOBBLER was led through a snap shackle on the end of the MAIN MAST BOOM. 

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but this should cover most everything. 

Blue Hawaii

BLUE HAWAII

We’ve been busier than a one armed paperhanger traveling this year. We’ve been to England, Fort Bragg, Oahu, South Carolina, Italy, back again to Italy and then to Kauai and Maui.

We spent a week in Waikiki at a time share condo. I haven’t been to Oahu since my Navy days which is about fifty years ago. Jamie wanted me to see the USS Arizona memorial among other things. I’d been past Arizona dozens of times on the aircraft carrier and destroyer but never stopped to see the memorial.

Well off we flew to Hawaii and I was in for a surprise. Actually two surprises. The first surprise was how much Waikiki had changed. The second was how much was still the same.

We did all of the tourist things. Coach tours around the island, foodie tours around Honolulu, a big luau  at the Hawaiian Village, a catamaran sail around Waikiki beach, a sunset dinner cruise on a very big  boat and then a trip to Pearl Harbor to see Arizona.

We bought the required tickets to take a boat over to the old battleship. After we boarded the launch was announced that the dock at the memorial had been damaged and therefore the memorial was closed. Thanks a lot bureaucrats. So I was motored around Arizona as I had dozens of times before. We were in Hawaii for a week and there was an ABC store on the street level of the condo building so all in all, it was still  a very good visit.

On December 29 we boarded a Hawaiian Air jet and flew to Kuai’i. I had been to Oahu and the big island of Hawaii but never to Kuai’i. Kuai’I was a blast. It wasn’t crowded like Oahu and very green. In fact it’s called the garden island. We stayed in another time share and drove all around the island in a rental car. As we were pulling out of the Dollar Rent a Car place at the airport there was a chicken standing right next to the security lady at the gate of the lot. I said “Oh look, a chicken”. She gave me a funny look and off we drove. Little did I know that on Kauai’I there are thousands of feral chickens running around. At no time is a chicken not in sight. They are everywhere. Big really beautiful, colorful roosters and their hens with their chicks. We drove all over the island and had one hell of a nice time.

We went to an old rehabbed sugar plantation and spent time there at a rum tasting and took a ride on the old diesel powered narrow gauge sugar train. A stop at Hanoi Hanna’s, AKA Hilo Hattie’s was a must. We spent six days in the town of Kapa’a.

A quick fifteen minute jet flight took us then to Maui. We stayed in a remodeled suite the was once an Embassy Suite. I love Embassy Suites and stayed at one when I traveled when ever there was one located where I had traveled so I was more than OK with it. We were in Kaanapali Beach  and took walks down the beach, toured the Island in our rental car and took the Holiday Express on the sugar train, an old narrow gauge steam train complete to Santa’s village where we got cookies and milk along with all of the other kids. A drive to Hana  was a must do. The legendary road to Hana is only 52 miles from Kahului, It's fraught with narrow one-lane bridges, hairpin turns and incredible island views. The Hana Highway (HI-360) has 620 curves and 59 one lane bridges. We went to the town of Paia and strolled around town and ended up at Mama’s Fish House and what a delightful experience that was.

There was a day trip to Lanai’I on a sixty two foot catamaran. We spent the day on a beach and had a motor tour of the metropolis of Lana’I City. Larry Ellison owns 98% of the island and since the pineapple industry has collapsed, he has been the island’s sugar daddy.

We stayed in Kaanapoli Beach for six days and then moved to the Pioneer Inn at the harbor in Lahina. The inn is in the National Registry of Historic buildings. It was built in 1901 and is a three star Best Western Hotel. It is literally feet from the harbor’s wharf.

Two day before Christmas, my son Dave and his wife Amy flew in to Maui and we spent two days with them. We went to another rehabbed sugar plantation for lunch and it was fantastic. The next day we met at The Lahina Yacht Club for lunch. The LYC is very exclusive but Dave is a member of the Long Beach YC we got in. Decent food but another Maui great view. The same evening, Christmas Eve, we had dinner at Duke’s back at Kaanapoli Beach. Very good food and, guess what, another great view. We ate outdoors on the beach.

At ten PM Christmas Day, we flew back to good old Long Beach.

GOODYEAR BLIMP

I have done many things in my life and been many places. 

I spent nine years in the US Navy and was stationed on an Ammunition Depot in southern Indiana. I went to three guided missile schools. The first In Virginia Beach, the second at the General Dynamics plant in Pomona California and the last was the killer Missile Technician B School at Mare Island in Vallejo Calif. I was stationed on a super aircraft carrier USS Constellation CVA-64 at North Island California. I was at new construction at the Todd Shipyard in Seattle for nine months where my beautiful destroyer USS Waddell DDG-64 was built. Waddell was homeported in Long Beach, Ca. for the four years a was aboard her. We did two westpacs to Vietnam and had a lifetime's worth of armed combat.

I attended college at three different schools after my discharge. I had interesting jobs which took me to places like Australia, Japan, Korea Mexico City and the nine Western States. I've been all over the world. Four trips to Europe, one mainly to Germany, one to England and two Italy. I have driven down Baja California from Long Beach to La Paz BCS.

I have fathered two sons and did a fair amount of raising them as a single father while living on my schooner. I have lived aboard a Columbia 28 sloop, a Downeast 38 schooner which I had for thirty five years and now our Choey Lee 40 foot trawler. I also have two marvelous grandchildren and a very pretty daughter in law. Speaking of pretty, I also have a gorgeous significant other.

I have owned two Ducati two Triumph two Honda and two Norton motorcycles plus a  Kawasaki and and Yamaha. I have a pilots license and have flown a Ford trimotor airplane.

The reason I bring all of this up is because on Friday my son David took me for a ride on the Goodyear blimp which isn't really a blimp anymore. It was but the new one is actually a dirigible which unlike a blimp actually has a rigid airframe. Technically it is a Zeppelin being built in Germany by Zeppelin Luftschiffahrt.This was a major event in my life. For a few years I made regular visits to the Goodyear tire plant in LA. I even had my own parking spot and still I couldn't wrangle a ride on that blimp. For the last forty five years I felt sad whenever I drove by the Goodyear airship operations in Carson wishing I could somehow hop a ride. 

It was all I was expecting and more.We cruised above the twin ports of LA and Long Beach at fifteen hundred feet at about forty knots and the view was spectacular. The first officer was at the controls and the captain did a Q & A the whole time we were aloft. It was as good as sex. Well almost as good. 

2018 TRAVELS PART 2

In May, we flew to Honolulu. I hadn't been to Oahu in fifty one years. I used to fly to the big island of Hawaii with my TWA flight attendant wife Nancy somewhat regularly. We flew into Kona and had a 27 hour layover at the Kona Reef  Hotel. But I digress.

Waikiki has changed a lot in fifty years but Honolulu is pretty much the same. The biggest change in Waikiki is the ABC stores. The ABC stores started out as liqueur stores but now calling an ABC store a liqueur store is like calling Trader Joe's a liqueur store. Both started out as liqueur stores and both are much, much more now. To quote Wikipedia "There are 35 store locations within a one-mile radius of Waikiki alone and consequently many of these sit in close proximity to one another. The intersection of Kalakaua and Seaside Avenue alone has four ABC Stores. There was an ABC in the same building where our time share was. We dropped a ton of money right there.

We did all of the tourista stuff and took a food tour and a island tour. We spent the better part of one day at the Ala Moana Shopping center looking at a lot of Hawaiian tchotchkes. I have passed the Battleship Arizona dozens of times while entering or leaving Pearl Harbor but never have been to the memorial. After paying $15 per head as we were boarding the boat that takes the tourists out to Arizona, the nice folks informed us that we couldn't actually board the memorial due to some bullshit reason the memorial was closed. So we putted around for 15 minutes and went back to the dock. Thanks a lot, been there, done that. 

We took a sunset dinner cruise off of Waikiki on a big boat which was fun. We also went to a luau and walked up an down Kalakaua Blvd. a few times.  All things considered, a good time was had by all.

In late June, we flew to Charlotte NC and rented a car at the airport. We drove to Charleston SC and stayed a week at The Meeting Inn. Charleston was an unexpected surprise. What a beautiful city. So rich in history. The Low Country cuisine is remarkable. Classic Southern food with a lot of seafood. We went on a horse drawn buggy through town and later walked through a beautiful old section of town. We took the schooner Pride for a day sail. I was very proud of myself. I sat back and enjoyed the sail without leaping to my feet and shouting out orders. We went out to Fort Sumter where The Civil War started. As a history fan I was in heaven.

We left Charleston and drove to Beaufort SC where The Great Santini took place. I read the book, which I loved and saw the movie, which I also loved but nothing looked familiar. Oh well. Drove on to Hilton Head where old friends Scott and Deb Douglas  Have a house. Due to health reasons, Scott did most of the cooking which consisted of BBQ treats. No complaints there. He is on a par with Debra and they both are almost as good as Irene, Debra's mother. Unfortunately, Irene passed a few years ago. One day, we drove over to Bluffton and ate at the Cottage Restaurant where I had Blue Crab, corn and bacon pot pie. Like Arney, I'll be back. We bought crabs at the local seafood market. We spent a day in Savannah which after The Garden of Good and Evil I was chomppin' at the bit to see. It wasn't exactly like what I remembered in the movie but it didn't disappoint. 

 

2018 TRAVELS

So far this year we have been to London, Italy, Oahu and The Low Country, IE the sea shore of So. Carolina and Georgia.

I just did a quick count of the countries where I've been. North And South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. By most people's standards that's a lot of destinations, but one of the few places that I haven't been and wanted to see was The British Isles. 

So off we went in March we boarded Wow Air an Icelandic budget airline and headed off to Gatwick airport in London.  After a quick change of airplanes in Reykjavik we continued on to London.

England in general and London in particular was a bit of a surprise. I wasn't expecting the go-go sixties but I thought that it would be somewhat behind the USA in terms of modernization. Not so, London is almost like the US except they do have this annoying habit of driving down the wrong side of the street. It took me at least a week to learn to look both ways before stepping off of the curb to cross the street. There is so much to see in The UK the two weeks we were there was not nearly enough. We went to Stonehenge of course and Greenwich of course where we boarded Cuttysark and Portsmouth the home of The Royal Navy where we boarded Victory, Lord nelson's ship. The was basically my A list. We stayed at The Millennium Hotel in Kensington which was very centrally located and took the underground, subway, to get around using our Oyster cards. We walked to the Victoria and Albert Musium and to The Royal Albert Hall. We took coach tours to Dover, Stratford Upon Avon, Cambridge, Bath, Leeds and Highclere Castle where Downton Abby was filmed. We found the hop on-hop off bus tour a very good way to see what you wanted to see and avoid the crap. We went to Harrod's and Selfridge's Department stores. The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's and Westminster Abby were all on our itinerary. Big Ben was a disappointment. After 157 years of continuous service, the tower is clad in construction scaffolding. You could barely identify it. 

I'd heard that English food is very bland, and it is, but because of the cosmopolitan atmosphere in the city almost any ethnic foo was very close by. We found the halal places had some of the best food to be found. We went to pubs and had fish and chips and on Sunday we ate Sunday roast which is traditionally roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and creamed spinach. The UK is a beer drinkers paradise. The beer in Germany and Belgium and Holland is better but in London there is an amazing variety of brews to sample. When a bartender heard my accent, they offered me an American brew. "Mate, we have Budweiser on drought". Thank you but no thank you.
We will have to return to the UK soon as we only hit the highlights and now need to explore further.

Italy Part Due

After spending almost a week in Rome, Capri, the Amalfi Coast and Sorrento, we headed for Tuscany. We had two weeks booked at a time share in Lorro Cuiffenna. It was wonderful, straight out of a dream. 

We arrived on a Monday morning while the weekly street market was taking place. It had a vast array of produce and a meat vendor there who was selling porchetta sandwiches which are rolled up roasted sides of pork with a crackling skin and a few bits of liver inside of the roll. I was hooked right there and then. We explored the town, or should I say village, the rest of the day. 

The next day we visited some Tuscan Chianti wineries. We ended up buying twelve bottles of  Chianti plus a few whites and one rose wine. All of the wineries in addition to sampling their wares fed us Italian pu-pus. Half way through the day, we also had lunch in some little walled town. We spent another day sitting around the pool recovering from the previous day's excesses. 

The next day we spent exploring the Tuscan countryside with Sam and Ruth a couple from Redondo Beach who had rented a Jeep SUV. We spent another day attending an Italian cooking school learning the proper way to make home-made pasta and made tagliatelle and raviolis.  

On Saturday, being Sam and Ruth moved on to Greece, we took a cab to Montevarchi, then a train to Arezzo to rent a car. A cute little Fiat 500. We went to Pisa to see, what else, the Tower and back to Sienna. After Sienna, Jamie had to go to the Prada outlet in Montevarchi. Needless to say she was on cloud nine for a few days afterward.
It's Sunday, it must be walled cities day. We went to Montalcino, Pienza, Montepulciano where parts of Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed and finally Monteriggioni which was the best of the lot. If you think you're seeing Monte as part of the town's names it's because the walled towns are built on hilltops or montes. Damned fine views and good protection from who ever is about to invade you. By the time they get to the top of the hill in full battle gear, thy were too exhausted to put up much of a fight.

The next day we drove to Cortona and spent most of the day just enjoying Italy. We then took a train to Venice for the day and had a wonderful time and then a train back to Lorro Cuiffenna. Another train ride to Florence to catch the tour of the Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre is on the Italian Riviera and is so beautiful it is a UNESCO Heritage site. It consists of five charming little towns that sit on the sides of hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. They are inaccessible by car and you can only get there by train. 

Back to Lorro Cuiffenna for the evening and then back to Florence by train for sightseeing and especially to see Michelangelo's David which is how my son got is name. There are no superlatives  that I know that describes that hunk of marble. 

Finally, we drove to the Rome airport and turned in the little red Fiat and got a hotel room next door to the Vatican and went sightseeing on our last day.

We flew to Amsterdam on KLM which was a very pleasant experience and got a hotel room on a canal. We had to be back to Schiphol,  Amsterdam's airport for our fourteen hour flight to LAX.  

I think I'll get out of retirement and go back to work, I need the rest.

ITALY

The last time I was in Italy was about 1974. My how things have changed. With me not with the country. I'm not the hell on wheels guy as I was in my yout. Rome is after all The Eternal City and as Rome goes so goes the rest of the country.

Everywhere you turn, you see history and beauty. Roman aqueducts run through the city and everywhere are two thousand year old structures. The food is to die for and the women are beautiful. Italian women are According to the Godfather "In Italy, the women are more dangerous then shotguns".

But who wants to live a boring life anyway? I don't. 

I am here in Rome right now with my own topolina awaiting our train to Florence. We are staying in Tuscany for two weeks at a small cottage. We plan on taking a few Italian cooking classes together, taking a 13 hour train excursion through Cinque Terre, also one day train trips to Pisa and Venice. With a little luck I am also going to enjoy some down time in the pool and letto. We are a "five minute walk" to the town and I am already an olympic class walker, which is a good thing. 

We have already taken a bus trip to Pompeii and then on to Sorrento. We spent two nights at the Imperial Hotel Tramontano. From the hotel, we took a boat to Capri to see the famous Blue Grotto. The damned famous grotto was so famous the crowd was like a swarm of locusts. We never got into the grotto. Note to self, never go to anything touristy in Italy in tourist season. 

The second day in Sorrento we took a car trip to the Amalfi Coast. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. We are seriously considering moving there, but I am holding out until I see Tuscany and Cinque Terre in particular before making firm plans.    

Pre 1950s Life in Cleveland

Pre 1950s Life in Cleveland

There aren't too many people who remember the paper and rag man. He would sit on the bench of his wagon, yelling "Paper rags " usually in the poor neighborhoods. It sounded like paypa dape to me. I was only five or six back then.

People would come out with bundled paper, rags, pots and pans, bottles and anything else he might buy. He would pay a few pennies for these remnants, then probably took them to some junkyard where he made a few pennies profit.

He was a small, elderly, wrinkled old man and the strength and range of his voice was surprising as he yelled out, "Paper rags." His wagon was pulled by a wrinkled old horse as it slowly and with difficulty made its way down our street.

We boys in the neighborhood had never seen a live horse. Our only acquaintance with horses was seeing our favorite cowboy heroes in the movies. Although hard to believe, this was before TV.

The paper and rag man was a kindly soul and he allowed us to pet the horse when he stopped to pick some paper or rags. I'm a little ashamed to remember that we often followed the wagon, taunting him by mimicking his voice and shouting "Paper rags." But he didn't mind. I think he liked the children and the attention he and the horse were getting from us. Whenever our parents could spare it, we were allowed to take a carrot or apple to the seemingly always hungry horse and it nuzzled us in gratitude.

Back then, we also had a guy who walked the streets with a small cart not unlike a golf bag cart who sharpened knives. Another guy fixed things, mainly umbrellas.

We, like everyone else, had a milk man. Our milk man would put his deliveries in our milk chute which was on the side of our house on the drive way. The other milk man actually had a horse and wagon. This was in the nineteen forties.

We also had an ice man who brought our ice right into the house and placed the block in the icebox.

There was an ice cream truck or motor scooter with a big box in front that sold ice cream bars and sandwiches. They used jingle bells like on Santa's sleigh to announce their presence. 

There was a waffle truck much like the ice cream truck. They made the waffles fresh to order and dusted them with powdered sugar.

Some houses had phones with no dials. You picked up the phone and didn't get a dial tone. An operator would come on the line and you would tell her what number that you wanted to call.

Of course, back then, there were no television sets. The first one that I saw had about a 5 inch screen and mostly showed a test pattern. The big entertainment device was the radio. We had a Zenith console that had a record player on the right side which only played 78 RPM records. Back then 45 PM records hadn't been available and 33 1/3s were science fiction.

Going downtown to shop meant going to Higbee's May's. In Ohio, it wasn't May Company or Higbee Company it was May's or Hugbee's. The frosted malteds in the basements were a special treats as there were no McDonalds or Wendie's back then. Going downtown meant taking a streetcar and later a bus.

END OF AN ERA

I am a US Navy veteran and accordingly act like the sailor that I am.

This has included, in no particular order, chasing women, drinking a lot of rum, drinking even more beer and eating almost anything I happened across. 

Well I had a big eye-opener two weeks ago. I had my third stroke. It was a miner stroke if there is such a thing. A TSA or Transient Ischemic Attack. 

The docs at the VA Hospital grilled me with a bunch of questions concerning my life style. Do you smoke? Me, I smoke about ten cigars a year. Do you drink? Me, not like I used to. Why did you cut back? Me, I got old. How much do you drink? Me, I have a mixed drink, a beer, or a glass of wine with dinner about five times a week. Do you have a healthy diet? Me, it depends who you ask. I feel that I do. I have mostly chicken breast, fish and lean pork regularly. I don't get junk food like double cheese burgers hardly ever and I eat red meat, IE beef less than once a week. 

That's good what about vegetables? Me, I could do better in that department. What does that mean? Is more than half of your plate veggies? Me, no. A quarter? Me, sometimes. You need to do better. Do want to die tomorrow? Me, of course not.

My take on this is as follows.

The cigars are not good but not all that bad. Same for the alcohol. Part of the diet is OK but the veggie and fiber part needs improving.

Sunday we went to the Fish Camp. I had grilled sand dabs and instead of ordering fries and mac & cheese as my two sides, I had rice and grilled veggies. This is a quantum leap for this old sailor but entirely necessary. Last evening I bought a no-salt rotisserie chicken. I really couldn't really perceive any difference. 

My next big step is to have several meatless days each week.

It isn't the end of the world but you can see it from here.