New Year's Day frostbite regatta, Long Island, NY, 1971. I'm
standing there thinking how I'd rather be sitting on the couch
watching bowl games all day. At least Dad had his hot buttered
rum in a thermos!
P.S.- Notice the custom boom vang. After breaking two booms
with a bolt through the boom and a U-shaped bale attached to the
vang wire, Dad used an aluminum plate that spread the load over
about six inches, eliminating that pressure.
As of a few years ago, this penguin, #8839, was still being
campaigned on the Chesapeake out of Annapolis. The class
size has seriously dwindled, however. It's a shame.
Nice...I could use a bit of that hot buttered
ReplyDeleterum right about now.
It is better to have sailed with frost than to never have sailed at all.
ReplyDeleteOr, so I've been told by some highly suspect sources.
Boats of wood die just as if they were made of flesh & blood. Not like fiberglass hulls which clog harbors in perpetuity with their unloved & discarded carnal presence. I'll say that much for wood: like flesh, it at least withdraws when no longer loved.
ReplyDeleteThis boat was for sale a few years ago, and I wanted to buy it back, but it disappeared.
ReplyDeleteAnd since posting this, I've examined this photo up close dozens of times. I spent countless hours in that boat, and with every view I catch another nuance of her that I remember, like it was yesterday. A Beaton beauty.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't exactly resemble my Penguin, which was built from a kit. I'm looking for oar locks and I think I see them. I do not remember the "Gull" like yesterday. But for me, she was transformable: one race in a rain squall, unfinished, condemned me to a four decades of yacht racing. And what a lovable, if expensive, curse it has been....
ReplyDeleteAccording to this link Penguin #8839 was still being raced this year at Tred Avon YC.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised. Solid boat. When Taylor grows out of her, I should swoop in.
ReplyDeleteI could use some hot buttered rum myself ... problem is, I've run out of butter. Holiday baking is on temporary hold until Pat can get out to the store.
ReplyDeleteBaydog,
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your Blog in 2010, I look forward to your 2011 postings! I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family. God Bless.
Fair winds,
Charley Best (My Life in the Fl Keys and beyond)