by John Stratton
Well, the other day we took our boat up to the head of a Connecticut River estuary and beached it on a small, low, not-too-muddy island to stretch out. On the other end of the sandbar were a dad and his two kids, about seven or eight years old. The kids were playing in the water, exploring, finding treasures, being brave. Their canoe was around the bend a bit.
It was a peaceful Saturday. In the distance, the overgrown pastures were green, the old farmhouses were tucked away in trees. It could have been 1890, 1920, 1940, 1950.
But not 1999, when most kids would be stashed in the back of the minivan headed for soccer practice or T-ball practice or Little League or some other Constructive Thing, carefully scheduled to fit in to a busy weekend.
Not that there is anything wrong with skill-building activities. Yes, it is good for you, better than the TV diet. But that dad had the right idea. He took his kids on an independent adventure, a place they'd never been, and let them explore it by themselves, and learn a little more about who they were becoming on their own, with the illusion of being unsupervised.
I left the island about when they did. They were off in their canoe, Dad in the stern, both kids in the bow with their own paddles, pulling smoothly, heading for home. A nice Saturday afternoon.
Actaeon
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
A Snowy Row On New Years
Norm and Roger started the tradition; or, Norm did and Roger followed, Norm, the father of Rogers' bride. The premise was to start the new year with a short paddle at high noon in the matching Naugahyde-covered kayaks they had built together. The launch point was at the Foot of Main Street in Essex, Ct., onto the majestically barren Connecticut River. Starting sometime in the late 1960's, on every decent New Years Day (with necessary postponements, never cancellations,) the idea took root and became an annual imperative such as is, tradition.
We joined in the tradition sometime in the 1980's, first my brother and I, then the members of our little Oar and Paddle Club, of which Norm and Roger were original members. This was never an official, sanctioned event, but rather a tradition for people to join or not as they chose; for there were years when the wind came howling, years when only the Club's erstwhile gig Current could be dragged across the ice for a dockside boarding; years when ice hovered on a slack tide, ready to close in and trap us like Arctic explorers, albeit a few dozen feet from shore. Some years were so bitter cold that, with boots on, ones' feet could be warmed by standing in the icy waters. And some, perhaps most, of the years, it has been warm, pleasantly so, and sunny; positively, the first day unveiling..
And then, there was the year it snowed on New Years Eve.
We were launching from the State ramp in Old Saybrook by then, for strictly logistical reasons, the ramp that is a massive, five lane affair under the concrete Baldwin Bridge, that which carries I-95 across the wide Connecticut River. It is a starkly practical place, functional and well conceived, rather like the commissars would have built if pleasure boating had been permitted the proletariat. The day was warm and calm, the pavement mostly clear of the light snow from the previous eve. But the trees were white like Christmas cards, fluffed with snow that would have been perfectly framed by a window pane next to a fireplace over hot cocoa. As we launched our boats the white world felt more like winter than the air itself.
From a pure boating perspective, it was a perfect day to go rowing in reasonable boats. The temperature hovered near forty degrees, the current moderate and favorable, the wind gentle if there was wind at all. Occasional sheets of ice, crystal clear invisible in the smooth waters, bumped along our hulls to no concern or consequence. And yet, more than any of these New Years' passages on the river, more than the bitter cold or wind or ice, this day had the unmistakable, unforgiving feel of winter; it was winter, the water cold, trees covered in white snow crowding the wide river with a palpable, pressing clarity. It is winter, this is a risky venture, this is real, this is the beauty of a life's moment on the slippery edge of endless oblivion. This was not the best of our New Years' rows, but it was the perfect one.
Our course, our usual course for a casual afternoons' row, took us across the river, behind Calves Island (that precious, natural marsh made accessible with dredging spoils), then the long crossing between Ayers and Ferry Points. Here the scenery was more fiction-like than real, more the painted landscape of imagination, the white trees framing houses transformed into cartoon homes by rounded shoulders of wind driven snow. All the ground was covered too, the blacktop roads invisible from our low sitting boats. We were rowing into a new year, which could as well have been a new year of centuries ago. Across the marsh the snow-capped phragmites made a carpet of white, with little creeks opening up to the land beyond. We headed there next.
Inside the creek all the world disappeared, hidden by the invasive reeds that have overrun our indigenous marshlands. This is always a quiet passage. this marsh-creek running, quiet but for small creature noises and distant motorboats, now silenced by the wintry wrap of snow. Someone suggested a visit to a friend who lives back from the creek, a shouting visit as it turned out, with a fellow rower surprised to see us rowing on a winters' day like this.
No one ever really plans their most memorable days, they happen somewhere in the confluence of dates and destinations relevant and not. But one must always put the parts in motion to, from time to time, meet with the moments to be long held in memory's fond embrace. We returned to a toast of sparkling wine, and began the new year with many reports of good things yet to come.
We joined in the tradition sometime in the 1980's, first my brother and I, then the members of our little Oar and Paddle Club, of which Norm and Roger were original members. This was never an official, sanctioned event, but rather a tradition for people to join or not as they chose; for there were years when the wind came howling, years when only the Club's erstwhile gig Current could be dragged across the ice for a dockside boarding; years when ice hovered on a slack tide, ready to close in and trap us like Arctic explorers, albeit a few dozen feet from shore. Some years were so bitter cold that, with boots on, ones' feet could be warmed by standing in the icy waters. And some, perhaps most, of the years, it has been warm, pleasantly so, and sunny; positively, the first day unveiling..
And then, there was the year it snowed on New Years Eve.
We were launching from the State ramp in Old Saybrook by then, for strictly logistical reasons, the ramp that is a massive, five lane affair under the concrete Baldwin Bridge, that which carries I-95 across the wide Connecticut River. It is a starkly practical place, functional and well conceived, rather like the commissars would have built if pleasure boating had been permitted the proletariat. The day was warm and calm, the pavement mostly clear of the light snow from the previous eve. But the trees were white like Christmas cards, fluffed with snow that would have been perfectly framed by a window pane next to a fireplace over hot cocoa. As we launched our boats the white world felt more like winter than the air itself.
From a pure boating perspective, it was a perfect day to go rowing in reasonable boats. The temperature hovered near forty degrees, the current moderate and favorable, the wind gentle if there was wind at all. Occasional sheets of ice, crystal clear invisible in the smooth waters, bumped along our hulls to no concern or consequence. And yet, more than any of these New Years' passages on the river, more than the bitter cold or wind or ice, this day had the unmistakable, unforgiving feel of winter; it was winter, the water cold, trees covered in white snow crowding the wide river with a palpable, pressing clarity. It is winter, this is a risky venture, this is real, this is the beauty of a life's moment on the slippery edge of endless oblivion. This was not the best of our New Years' rows, but it was the perfect one.
Our course, our usual course for a casual afternoons' row, took us across the river, behind Calves Island (that precious, natural marsh made accessible with dredging spoils), then the long crossing between Ayers and Ferry Points. Here the scenery was more fiction-like than real, more the painted landscape of imagination, the white trees framing houses transformed into cartoon homes by rounded shoulders of wind driven snow. All the ground was covered too, the blacktop roads invisible from our low sitting boats. We were rowing into a new year, which could as well have been a new year of centuries ago. Across the marsh the snow-capped phragmites made a carpet of white, with little creeks opening up to the land beyond. We headed there next.
Inside the creek all the world disappeared, hidden by the invasive reeds that have overrun our indigenous marshlands. This is always a quiet passage. this marsh-creek running, quiet but for small creature noises and distant motorboats, now silenced by the wintry wrap of snow. Someone suggested a visit to a friend who lives back from the creek, a shouting visit as it turned out, with a fellow rower surprised to see us rowing on a winters' day like this.
No one ever really plans their most memorable days, they happen somewhere in the confluence of dates and destinations relevant and not. But one must always put the parts in motion to, from time to time, meet with the moments to be long held in memory's fond embrace. We returned to a toast of sparkling wine, and began the new year with many reports of good things yet to come.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Memorial Day Sail, 1980
There was a high pressure system that lasted for days. The winds were steady, strong, out of the north-northwest. It was warmer now, but the wind made it sweater weather. We were going sailing on our 1937 vintage Yankee One Design, the ubiquitously named Broomstick.
Standing on the dock, I suggested to my father that he should go. There was an awkwardness to the conversation, his health a recent question, his chances left to sail on a sailors' breeze in play. No, he as much gestured as spoke, you should go; I have to get over this thing first. He watched from the dock as we sailed away, the man we and his yard crew referred to as the Chief. He was 71, I was 21.
On board besides myself were my brother Rick; our friend Rob, still recovering from an automobile accident; Nathan, an engineer in the merchant marines; and a friend of Nathans' who worked for the seaman's union.
The sail down river was swift and clean, a downwind drive before the fresh northerly winds. Three miles on we were sailing the waters of Long Island Sound, following our traditional course of no particular course, sailing just because Broomstick was meant for sailing. And, in the conditions we found that day, strong winds darkening the swells that ran six feet high or more, keeping us rail down and powering through the waves with thoroughbred form. We reached away to the east, tied in a reef and sailed with the small jib. Just for fun, Rob and I hiked off the running backstay, keeping the lee rail just clear of the water during one prolonged blast of pressing wind.
Nathans' friend was turning green from the moment we reached the rougher waters of the Sound. He was a desk worker with the union, and this was his first time sailing for real. We suggested the old sailors' remedy of a few crackers to settle his stomach, which he declined, preferring to test his willpower against the seas while lying nauseously wherever he could be out of the way. We sympathized, but our sympathies were not deep enough to send us back to calmer waters, and to his credit willpower won out that day.
We sailed on. We were young, our boat was strong and in her element, and the day was ours; a rare day for Long Island Sound, which so often waivers between slatting calms and smoky sou'westers. Northerly breezes typically fade as they reach the first mile of the Sound, but not today; this wind carried energy beyond local weather patterns, beyond the cooling and warming of land between night and day, dark and sun. This was energy from the larger land, the larger sea, and we were driving the venerable Broomstick right to her intended limits that day.
Broomstick was the name given to Yankee One Design # 15 by her previous owner, John McVitty; her original name had been Anita. Her lines were published in the Rudder magazine in 1936 or so, and my father often told the story of how, when he opened the magazine to that page, the design just jumped off the page at him. She was to his eye close to the perfect model for a sailors' sailboat, narrow, deep, long waterline, hollow bow, a profile of elegant curves, a design of pure logic and beauty. Officially, the Yankee was the anonymous winner of a juried design contest to form a new one design class for Buzzards Bay and beyond; but it was commonly known, or perhaps simply impossible not to recognize, that this could only be the work of the genius Starling Burgess, unrestrained.
When my father decided some twenty years or so later that he would build a boat for the family, the Yankee One Design was near the top of his list of possible designs. Ultimately he decided on a boat with more accommodations for cruising, but when McVitty brought Broomstick to the boatyard for storage, her spot was always right alongside the boat the Chief was building for his family.
Then the fire of 1964 took the boatyard and the boat under construction. Five years later Broomstick became part of our family; between summers of sailing she was re-constructed and upgraded until she was strong enough again for the kind of vigorous sailing she was intended for.
One of the first improvements to Broomstick was a new tiller and hardware, to eliminate any of the helm-wobble that the Chief found so annoying. In the past he and his father had adorned tillers with dragon figureheads, but Broomstick was all about speed, and the Chief was a big fan of the Peanuts comic strip. And so, Broomstick's tiller featured a carved figurehead of Snoopy, going real fast.
Broomstick was going real fast as we headed back up the river on a close hauled port tack. She always had a slight weather helm when driving to windward, something common, it seems, to boats with a propensity for going to windward. My father said this was because a weather helm forces the helmsman to sail tight on the wind; others say the rudder creates a better foil of the keel when slightly trimmed to lee. What was clear was that the modern boats were never a match when sailing to windward, especially in a breeze like that day; even boats half again her length gave little contest, even the one who revved up his engine to hold us off. On the way we shook the reef out of the mainsail, unwilling to concede even the fraction of a knot.
Our father came out to the dock to greet us as we returned. This had been one of the best sails we ever had on Broomstick, the kind of fresh breeze sailing for the pure joy of fresh breeze sailing that he enjoyed most. We furled the mainsail, stowed the jibs, coiled the halyards, backstays, and mainsheet, as the Chief, leaning on a weathered piling, watched. He was a man of few words for the moment at hand, preferring to tell his stories of younger days, the satisfying hard work, the good sails and old friends that had filled his life so well. We had to reef; it was a good sail. Perhaps that much was said.
Nathan took the photograph of the Chief leaning on his piling. The camera caught him in mid-cough, a remembrance of the cancer in his lung that would close out his life less than ten days later. He did not get out sailing again, and so that Memorial Day sail was in a way the handing off to a new generation, something that has been happening in more or less formal, more or less dramatic fashions, for thousands of years.
Standing on the dock, I suggested to my father that he should go. There was an awkwardness to the conversation, his health a recent question, his chances left to sail on a sailors' breeze in play. No, he as much gestured as spoke, you should go; I have to get over this thing first. He watched from the dock as we sailed away, the man we and his yard crew referred to as the Chief. He was 71, I was 21.
On board besides myself were my brother Rick; our friend Rob, still recovering from an automobile accident; Nathan, an engineer in the merchant marines; and a friend of Nathans' who worked for the seaman's union.
The sail down river was swift and clean, a downwind drive before the fresh northerly winds. Three miles on we were sailing the waters of Long Island Sound, following our traditional course of no particular course, sailing just because Broomstick was meant for sailing. And, in the conditions we found that day, strong winds darkening the swells that ran six feet high or more, keeping us rail down and powering through the waves with thoroughbred form. We reached away to the east, tied in a reef and sailed with the small jib. Just for fun, Rob and I hiked off the running backstay, keeping the lee rail just clear of the water during one prolonged blast of pressing wind.
Nathans' friend was turning green from the moment we reached the rougher waters of the Sound. He was a desk worker with the union, and this was his first time sailing for real. We suggested the old sailors' remedy of a few crackers to settle his stomach, which he declined, preferring to test his willpower against the seas while lying nauseously wherever he could be out of the way. We sympathized, but our sympathies were not deep enough to send us back to calmer waters, and to his credit willpower won out that day.
We sailed on. We were young, our boat was strong and in her element, and the day was ours; a rare day for Long Island Sound, which so often waivers between slatting calms and smoky sou'westers. Northerly breezes typically fade as they reach the first mile of the Sound, but not today; this wind carried energy beyond local weather patterns, beyond the cooling and warming of land between night and day, dark and sun. This was energy from the larger land, the larger sea, and we were driving the venerable Broomstick right to her intended limits that day.
Broomstick was the name given to Yankee One Design # 15 by her previous owner, John McVitty; her original name had been Anita. Her lines were published in the Rudder magazine in 1936 or so, and my father often told the story of how, when he opened the magazine to that page, the design just jumped off the page at him. She was to his eye close to the perfect model for a sailors' sailboat, narrow, deep, long waterline, hollow bow, a profile of elegant curves, a design of pure logic and beauty. Officially, the Yankee was the anonymous winner of a juried design contest to form a new one design class for Buzzards Bay and beyond; but it was commonly known, or perhaps simply impossible not to recognize, that this could only be the work of the genius Starling Burgess, unrestrained.
When my father decided some twenty years or so later that he would build a boat for the family, the Yankee One Design was near the top of his list of possible designs. Ultimately he decided on a boat with more accommodations for cruising, but when McVitty brought Broomstick to the boatyard for storage, her spot was always right alongside the boat the Chief was building for his family.
Then the fire of 1964 took the boatyard and the boat under construction. Five years later Broomstick became part of our family; between summers of sailing she was re-constructed and upgraded until she was strong enough again for the kind of vigorous sailing she was intended for.
One of the first improvements to Broomstick was a new tiller and hardware, to eliminate any of the helm-wobble that the Chief found so annoying. In the past he and his father had adorned tillers with dragon figureheads, but Broomstick was all about speed, and the Chief was a big fan of the Peanuts comic strip. And so, Broomstick's tiller featured a carved figurehead of Snoopy, going real fast.
Broomstick was going real fast as we headed back up the river on a close hauled port tack. She always had a slight weather helm when driving to windward, something common, it seems, to boats with a propensity for going to windward. My father said this was because a weather helm forces the helmsman to sail tight on the wind; others say the rudder creates a better foil of the keel when slightly trimmed to lee. What was clear was that the modern boats were never a match when sailing to windward, especially in a breeze like that day; even boats half again her length gave little contest, even the one who revved up his engine to hold us off. On the way we shook the reef out of the mainsail, unwilling to concede even the fraction of a knot.
Our father came out to the dock to greet us as we returned. This had been one of the best sails we ever had on Broomstick, the kind of fresh breeze sailing for the pure joy of fresh breeze sailing that he enjoyed most. We furled the mainsail, stowed the jibs, coiled the halyards, backstays, and mainsheet, as the Chief, leaning on a weathered piling, watched. He was a man of few words for the moment at hand, preferring to tell his stories of younger days, the satisfying hard work, the good sails and old friends that had filled his life so well. We had to reef; it was a good sail. Perhaps that much was said.
Nathan took the photograph of the Chief leaning on his piling. The camera caught him in mid-cough, a remembrance of the cancer in his lung that would close out his life less than ten days later. He did not get out sailing again, and so that Memorial Day sail was in a way the handing off to a new generation, something that has been happening in more or less formal, more or less dramatic fashions, for thousands of years.
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