Ghost Without Saying

Okay, when I came up with the title to this post, I originally was

not going to attach captions to these photos, but this boat deserves

commentary.  Ghost was purchased somewhere down south.  I'm

thinking Savannah-ish, an E-scow class racing hotbed in 

the mid to late 60's.  Not.  Hey, is that a Laser on the rack?

It looks way too placid there.  Certainly not comparable to

the rough and tumble nature of scow sailing on the local waters of

the Barnegat Bay, where you could smell motorboat exhaust,

cigarette smoke, and spilled cheap beer any given second of a

Saturday afternoon on the racecourse.  God, I miss that.

And I wasn't even old enough to drive a motorboat. 

Canvassed decking, varnished wooden floorboards,

wooden mainsheet and backstay cleats, spruce

mast and boom, and aluminum trim around the 

bilgeboard trunks.  Craftsmanship.  And check out

the handrails!  Take it from me, they felt great

on the backs of our legs.  And yes, I'm old enough.

BTW: is it a boom crutch or crotch?  In my lifetime,

the sailors surrounding me have used those two words 

at about a 1:1 ratio.  I can see both sides.  

At the Metedeconk main dock.  That was a Penguin 

tied up in front of Ghost.  The combination was about

as common as the shark and the remora.

At least in my family.  Just not attached.

But pretty damn close.

The good old days, when if you flipped (capsized),

your mast would float rather than getting stuck in the mud.

And every couple of years you had to sand and re-varnish 

your hull.  When the paint on your canvas deck started to

crack, that would need to be re-painted as well.  

Some charming nuances that only old wooden boats afforded.

Beating into a prevailing southeasterly.  Ghost seems to be in the 

middle of the pack, and the boat immediately to the left and 

farther to windward, as well as pointing higher and in better air,

is Runnie Colie sailing 'Calamity'.  Weird how the barber hauler on 

his jib seems to be way more outboard than his pointing would

 indicate.  But then at the same time, his main seemed to be 

trimmed down a bit tighter and the traveler a bit more inboard 

than some of the other boats.  Those may be facets of what makes

 a legend.  He will get to the weather mark first.  

He will get to keep the rooster.

As far as I'm concerned, this boat is the first finisher.

Geeze, there's that Penguin again.

The second E motion.  An inquiring mind wanted to know.

Bob bought the bare hull at a great discount and fitted her out

in the driveway.  Sometimes, his systems were better than Melges'.

He did the same with the final scow.  The class, by that time, had 

gotten so competitive, that unless you were placing week in and

week out, it was often hard to retain a steady crew.

The headache of that ultimately drove Bob out of the class in 1992.  

Normally, a crew of four is typical on an E scow, but

usually not necessary when Baydog was on the boards.