Out For A Sail on the Schooner Adirondack!

I'd hoped to finish off weekend-before-last-Sunday's fun, we did something cool after the conservatory garden, but that one I actually want to write a little something about, and work hasn't really been cooperating with leaving me enough time and energy to do that, so instead, here are some nice pictures from Saturday the 14th when TQ and I went on a boat (I'm on a boat!). I'm under doctor's orders not to paddle until the end of May, but there's no trouble in going out for a ride on a nice schooner, so we did. It was a gorgeous day, Capt. Kat was driving, it was great to catch up with her, and we had an absolutely splendid sail. We got a special treat in that the Transat Bakerly race fleet was beginning to arrive, and the first arrivals were slated to have some exhibition racing off the Battery; we were a little too early for the actual racing (the next Adirondack sail was going to have a great show!) but we did get to see some of the giant multihulls prowling about the Upper Harbor, which was very cool. I'd forgotten to put a card in my camera, but TQ had his phone along so we took turns with that; some of these are mine, some are his. We splurged on steak at the Knickerbocker Grill in the Village afterwards and all in all it was just a spectacular day!

OK - I just can't resist a little plug here - I admit to being horribly biased (I'm still proud to have been part-time crew on the Adirondack for 5 seasons, loved it!), but seriously, if you're looking for the pleasantest possible way to take a trip out on the harbor, whether you're a visitor yourself, or a lcoal looking for something fun and a little out-of-the-ordinary to do with out-of-town guests, you just can't beat Classic Harbor Lines.  

Back on the water, on a Classic Harbor Line fall foliage trip. Hooray!

Can't go under my own steam yet, but it was a glorious day for a ride on the schooner Adirondack, and after a couple of days of rushing off to doctors' appointments (just follow-ups to make sure healing is going as it should be, which it is, hurrah), it was SO nice this morning to be rushing off to get on a boat -- and not just any boat, this is the one I crewed on part-time for five years after leaving Manhattan Kayak Company, so aside from just being a really lovely passenger schooner, I'll always have a special fondness for this one. It's actually been a couple of years since I went out sailing on her and it was splendid to be back on board and back out on the water.

Classic Harbor Lines has just begun their fall foliage cruises up along the Palisades, which will run on into November; there wasn't a lot of color just yet, but there were little flashes of flame here and there among the green, and it's just gonna get better! Looking for a great way to go see the autumn show along the Palisades? Click here to visit the Classic Harbor Lines website. This is of course a totally unsolicited plug - just had such a nice time today, couldn't resist. BTW, if sailing is not your thing (or if it's just looking cold), they have a couple of nice motor vessels too - here's the Manhattan II coming by to say hello today - had to grab this shot quick but isn't nice? 

There will be more pix later of course, just picked a few to get this up. Good to be back to writing about boaty stuff again! Thanks Capt. Kat for a terrific return to the "sixth borough" - hadn't been that long but I was missing it already! 

Richard Hudson - Sailing the Northwest Passage, Wednesday, 1/18/2012

Oh, shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot. My friend Richard Hudson is in town VERY briefly and he's giving a presentation about sailing the Northwest Passage tomorrow night. The presentation is for a meetup group called the Gotham City Sailing Association; charge is $5 plus there's a $12 membership fee if you aren't already a member. Richard is a great guy with some wonderful sailing stories - I would go except I really want to go to the meeting about Four Sparrow Marsh - don't know that me being there is going to make a whit of difference but I just feel like that needs fighting.

Click here for the Meetup.com event info:

Click here fora page with links to stories about the 3 small schooners Richard owns or has owned.

Orbit II was lost at sea in 2002. The Rosemary Ruth was the boat that he was sailing when I met him (the "rosemary ruth" label below should pull up some of my trip reports from sailing with him back then); she's an absolutely charming craft and he worked on her for a long time but eventually decided she was just not quite the right cruiser for him and ended up buying a more suitable schooner, now known as the Issuma, in France in 2008. He's been sailing pretty much ever since & is now in Alaska - just in the city for a few days.

We Interrupt The Carnage for A NEWS FLASH

Good news today - the South Street Seaport Museum is under new management. Thanks to the Old Salt for the initial heads-up. Glad to see it!

Blogging Is Fun That Way.

Speaking of people who know what they want from life & aren't afraid to go after it, I dropped by the blog of the Gypsy Pirate Wench Varnish Monkey yesterday to see how the move to the Caribbean is treating her (very, very well, hurray!) - and all the sudden the cause (shown above) of the Mystic Traffic Jam (featured here last October) has a name!

Sodeb'o did it!

Enough serious stuff - quick news flash!

Remember the enormous trimaran I mentioned seeing weekend before last?

Well, that was the boat on which the singlehanded trans-atlantic record just got broken!

Less than 6 days. WOW.

Wonder how long it's going to take SailMag.com to figure out that there was no "and crew". How'd that get past the fact-checkers? I know, I know, I make mistakes a-plenty here, but I'm just some nobody blogger, y'know.

Anyways. Very very cool to have seen the beast with my own two eyes!

And in the meantime, the captain and crew of the schooner Issuma continue their far more leisurely trip the other way - taking their time with a solid shakedown cruise before they head out to sea.

A Moment of Envy.

Want to take a moment to join me in friendly envy of my friend Richard (of the Tom Colvin Yin-Yang Pinky Schooner Rosemary Ruth - still for sale, according to his site)?

He's bringing his new centerboard schooner home.

From France.

It's actually quite funny - I had just yesterday been thinking "Boy, haven't heard from Richard in ages - wonder how he's doing". And this morning, I stumbled across a link to his blog on the American Schooner Association.

Almost wish I could be on that boat. I mean, ok, not really - I don't have the open-water cruising experience I'd think a person would want to have before doing something like that - but a little bit. The whole idea of ocean crossings is the sort of thing that when I think about it, it's half fear & half excitement. Think about the right people being on the crew & in charge, and maybe the excitement starts to tip the scales.

Oh - one thought to take any edge of your envy. Richard is now the proud owner of two small schooners. That may sound spiffy at first glance, but I strongly suspect the optimal number of schooners for a non-filthy-rich private individual to own is, at most, one. For me, of course, I'm afraid it's a big ol' zero - otherwise I would've relieved Richard of his spare months ago.

For Sale - Schooner Rosemary Ruth - (Not A Joke!)

Update - March 2013: Hooray! The Rosemary Ruth has found a new home. I'm sad we won't be seeing her in NY Harbor any longer, but I'm happy for Richard. There are some possessions where it's handy to have a spare. Spare paddle, yeah. Spare warm clothing, yeah. Spare room? I wish I had one of those. Spare schooner? OK, not so much. Congrats to the new owner, hope you have many happy hours aboard the RR!

I know that last time I put up a boat for sale notice, it was a joke...

This time, it's real.

Yes, the Rosemary Ruth, the most charming schooner in New York City, as featured in many a warmly (even on some pretty frosty days!) reminiscent blog posts, both here and on fellow NYC waterblog Tugster, is looking for a new owner.

And if I had more time, more money & more know-how, trust me, I wouldn't be posting about it here.

However the fact is that I can't even afford a sailing dinghy, and as for upkeep, well, between lack of free time & insufficient knowledge, I'm afraid that if I owned a sailboat it would end up looking like a candidate for the Blog of Unloved Boats (that's the photo blog I think would be funny to start but I don't have time for that, either).

So not being a potential purchaser myself - here's full details (and lots of non-silhouette pictures) of the Rosemary Ruth.

I hope Richard can find a good owner for the schooner. I've had some wonderful times on board.

Sailing Saturday & a Visit to the Barge...

From Sailing & Pie...

Probably should've just gone home after the sail - was tired & sniffly & walking around a shut-down barge & boathouse just put me in a sort of a bad mood. Ah well. For those who actually followed all the sturm und drang that went on around the barge at Pier 63 last year, I thought you might like to see the update. Pay no attention to the cranky blogger behind the curtain.

Rosemary Ruth Gowanus sail photos -

This week's shaping up to be a busy one here at the office. I'd hoped to post some pictures from that great trip on the Rosemary Ruth, weekend before last, but I don't know how much time I'm going to have, and there happened to be a really good photographer on board with a better camera than mine, and he's already got HIS pictures up on a gallery, and he said it was OK to link to it so here it is! Enjoy!

Such a good sail!

Thanks, Dan (and Richard too, as always!)

Sailing off, heeling test & pretty city schooner shot.

As promised. Here's the Rosemary Ruth sailing off the dock nice as you please, as promised. It was a thorough stroke of luck that Richard's friend George showed up, with a camera, at the perfect time. Richard talked me & Jim through the procedure beforehand. It's neat to sail with someone who explains it in a way that you can picture exactly how it's going to work, and then it works exactly how you'd pictured it.

Another lovely day on the Rosemary Ruth. Temperature hovering around freezing, winds gusting to 30kts, there was spray being torn off the top of our wake. After some of the promised/warned-of heeling test, Richard had us take down everything but the reefed fore. Still, I'm too tired for words. Tired in a satisfying way though. So since that's all the words I have energy for, here are some nice pictures instead.













p.s. in case any local paddlers are interested - I got the following notice from Noreen Doyle at the Hudson River Park Trust.
*********************
The Advisory Council meeting has been scheduled for Monday at 5 pm at the NYC Comptroller’s office. The Chair has not circulated an agenda yet. In the future we will post on our website.

HRPT Advisory Council
Meeting Notice

When: Monday, March 19th, 2007
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Where: NYC Comptroller’s Office, 1 Centre Street
Agenda will follow
**********************
One of the folks who's very involved in the Hudson River Paddler's Guild had mentioned that at that Monday meeting too (thanks Mike!). Sorry I didn't mention it sooner. I still haven't seen an agenda, but with Pier 63 still up in the air, and the developments at CB1, I may still try to attend, just to see if anything interesting happens. I will definitely be late, and wouldn't it be just my luck to work my tail off to get out & down there as soon as I can and walk in just as they are finishing the boathouse section & moving on to the dog run people (oy, and if you think this water access business is a big ol' soap opera, I hear the dog people are WAY more emphatic than the paddlers). If I get an agenda, I'll post it here immediately.

Rosemary Ruth. Bone in teeth. Oh my yes.

This was weekend before last. Wish I'd been there. Wearing one of Richard's nice warm Mustang float coats...wheee! Fortunately somebody had a video camera!

Did not get outside boating this weekend despite noises to that effect on Saturday. Actually started pulling gear together, but then thought about lack of food in 'fridge, and article I'm working on, and lack of clean clothes, and length & intensity of Sunday's activity, and also possibility of getting all the way out to Sebago only to find the basin still iced in (probably wouldn't have negotiated the ice solo) & ditched paddling for a nice long brisk walk. Nice night, it was. Feels like Spring, tra la la!

The symposium was great, I think I only missed about 3 majorly crucial points on my paddle presentation (like I meant to mention that a great way to go about choosing a paddle is to paddle with a club or group of experienced paddlers, ask people how they like their paddles & ask if you can try them - frankly I just think all new paddlers should paddle with groups, the learning curve is SO much kinder when you get to learn from other people's mistakes instead of making every single one of them yourself, y'know?).

More later on the symposium. Already spent too much time responding to a comment from the prior post - there's day-job work to be done before I run off to the meeting tonight.

Folks who've been following the whole Hudson River Park saga might find those comments interesting, btw. My response is pure opinion on my part of course, the frustrating thing about real life is you just never know, sometimes, whether you're right or wrong, all you can do sometimes is say what you think is right & hope for the best.

Although it's easy to read evil motives into a situation where you have one pier that used to be all about boating & ecological education turning into a pier whose main focus is a big restaurant, and another pier where there's boating going on being eyed as a just another permanent venue for entertainment empire Cirque du Soleil (maybe they'll do "O" and call it water-dependent...grrrr...why not Times Square, with the Lion King and Madame Tussaud's? That would be TOTALLY appropriate & quite cool!), the story usually isn't that satisfyingly dramatic. More thoughts in those comments. Back to work for me now.

I Did Not Sail To Tottenville Today.

No, I did not sail to Tottenville today, on the Rosemary Ruth or any other sailing vessel.

But I had sailed there a little over a month ago, and I had had the most marvellous time writing up the trip report as far as the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I'd closed that with the promise, "Part II To Come!"

Well, sometimes it takes me a while to get back to it - but this seems like a good evening to take a break from all the political stuff & wander back through the rest of my pictures, see how much I can remember!

When last we left the charming schooner, after patiently await the passing of a parade of behemoths, she was crossing the Verrazano Narrows to the Staten Island side.

And now - under we go...


and away...


into the Lower Harbor.


Green "21" to port. Lightly frosted with ice, as the shoreline's been all along. Yes, you're right, it's red-right-return, but there's a fair amount of room between this marker and the end of the deep water, we're fine. LOOK at that current! We're ripping along!

The Verrazano recedes in the distance as we head south into the quiet of the lower harbor. Tugster is our tillerman.

These are Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, two of the many tiny islands scattered around the waterways of New York City. These two are entirely artificial, having been constructed of landfill in the 1870's; like so many of those little islands in the "Manhattan archipelago", these two have their history as a place of quarantine. In that respect, they are linked directly with a far more famous pair of little islands - Liberty (once Bedloe's) and Ellis - this was where immigrants who were denied entrance to the country because of disease - either active or feared to be highly possible due to an immigrant's country of origin - were held. You can read an interesting post on the subject here, on Google Earth.


Here's a slightly closer view of the ruins on Swinburne. Today, the only inhabitants are various birds - these little offshore islands make wonderful nesting areas where they can raise their young well away from all us troublesome human-types. There are some seals who've also come to appreciate that privacy in the last few years, although their basking is sometimes interrupted by fascinated kayakers. I haven't heard of any seal sightings yet this year, though - it seems as though perhaps with the winter being as bizarrely warm as it was up until a couple of weeks ago, the seals may not have travelled as far south as they sometimes do.

And that, by the way, is about as close as we can safely get to those islands in the Rosemary Ruth. I noticed that there's a lovely surf break between the two - that's the shallowest spot in the area - that turns out to be indicative of the entire south shore of Staten Island. I was actually surprised just how far we held a course that was nearly due south - my only other boating experience in this area was the kayak circumnavigation of Staten Island for which I joined the Rustbucket Adventure Squad a couple of years ago. In a kayak, you just don't notice the extent of the shallows that border the southern shore of Staten Island, but in a schooner, even a small one, you have to respect the limits of the Old Orchard Shoals, which extend nearly three nautical miles out from shore at their widest point. For ships like the big freighters and car carriers and tankers we were waiting for at the Narrows, the navigable waters are even more restricted - looking at a chart, you can see them laid out like roads, taking the giant ships straight to the ports. The channels are well marked, but being a harbor pilot for those behemoths has got to be a hair-raising job at times. The chart itself speaks to that. In the shorthand language of charts, "obstns" stands for "obstructions", and "wk" stands for "wreck". I see that and it leaves me wondering - is there a story behind it? It must be written down somewhere - even if only on a page somewhere in the dusty old archives of an insurance company.

At any rate...there's the West Bank Light - and we're close enough that Richard's ready to change our heading & sail for the Old Orchard Shoals light. A freighter or bulk carrier, for example, wouldn't be able to cut the particular corner we're cutting - but the Rosemary Ruth draws little enough water that we can get away with it.

And looking at the clock now, I'm afraid that's all I've got time for tonight.

Part III to come!

Blizzard, and Rosemary Ruth sails home (on Tugster)

And here are a couple of pictures from my morning commute -

Here's the view out the subway window on the Manhattan Bridge - looking north up the East River. Ordinarily, looking this direction, one would see the Williamsburg Bridge. Not the case today. BTW the pier in the relative foreground is Pier 42, a former banana pier. There's still a sign on it featuring a bunch of bananas - tried to find a picture, no luck. The area it's in is actually neat place to wander - along the river, under the bridges - and is next in line for "parkification" (a presentation of the very earliest stages of planning was one of the agenda items on the agenda at the community board meeting I attended not long ago about out of interest in the Tribeca boathouse situation). There is actually a little natural beach some way further down, near the Brooklyn Bridge - it will be interesting to see how they treat that. Would be very easy to turn into access for cartop or folding kayakers - all that needs to happen is space put into a barrier - and there are a couple of people working to try to make that happen. The usual concerns about liability are in play as they always are, though. The East River does have some strong currents, and there's always concern among the people in charge that if you make it easy to get to the water, eventually somebody's going to drown & then there'll be a lawsuit. That's just NYC for ya.


Walking down Broadway in the snow.


The word "yuck" may have featured prominently on this morning's post, but actually I'm somewhat enjoying the blizzard. If I'd thought of it, I might tried to get out on the harbor, just to see how things were out there - I've done that before & it can be sort of fun. The trick, as usual, is choosing the right gear. In this case, it's all about the boat. Here is my idea of the perfect boat for a blizzard in New York Harbor:


Of course the one little bummer about it was that TQ & I decided to postpone Valentine's Day. He was talking to a snowplow driver this morning & the gentleman told him that it was a very good day to not drive if that was an option. Wednesdays & Thursdays being TQ's days off, and both of us being in complete agreement that our plans tonight were not worth him ending up with his car in a ditch, or worse, he decided to listen to the snow-driving professional. Smart, my guy. I was looking forward to seeing him tonight but I'm not a big enough fan of Valentine's Day to want him to do anything stupid.

Now, I had some other pictures I was going to post but I went over to Tugster to look for pictures or interesting info about the banana pier - surprisingly, didn't find any of those, but he had some pictures I really enjoyed seeing, taken when he joined Richard in retrieving the Rosemary Ruth from Tottenville (I unfortunately couldn't have made that trip without cloning myself - so glad Tugster posted!). In fact, I think I may detect the makings of a maritime soap opera...could the interest Tugster seems to be taking in the sweet little pinkie schooner's shapely bottom mean that he's recovering from the spell cast by the alluringly bulbous-bowed, but distant Alice?

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode!

Photo trip report, Liberty Harbor - Tottenville, 1/28/07

The invitation came in in the middle of last week. Sunday Sailing! Clicked on the evite & there it was - sailing the Rosemary Ruth to Tottenville!

I couldn't accept fast enough - that is, once I'd looked at the forecast & seen temperatures slightly above freezing & wind of 5-10 kts. Nice sailing weather! I hadn't heard much from Richard this winter, and had assumed that he was doing work on the Rosemary Ruth that precluded sailing. He's eventually planning on taking her cruising in the Baltic, so every step of the refurbishment of his "charming pinkie schooner" (to borrow Tugster's phrase) I think I like the word "charming" better than "cute" - "cute" is sort of dismissive, somehow) has to be done right. Turned out that the real problem was a messed-up knee - but Richard's all better now & it was time for the Rosemary Ruth to go the boatyard in Tottenville to put on a few pounds of ballast. Am I remembering right when I say 1,600 lbs? Steel, attached to the keel. Wish I'd thought to take a picture of the diagram - Richard's found another pinkie schooner owner who had done a similar addition of ballast to his & the guy had taken some pictures of the RR's hull & done a little photoshopping to erase the stantions & show exactly where the steel beams needed to go. Richard had already added some ballast, but Richard had not quite interpreted the directions right the first time & ended up with not quite enough weight overall, but too much of what there was aft.

I had been invited on that first Tottenville trip - can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't go, but it was something beyond my control...

So this time - yes yes yes!

Richard emailed me to let me know I could bring someone - TQ had to work, we'd used up his January Sunday off with that glorious Silvermine Tavern/Norwalk Islands paddle, and plus he's not as into sailing as he is into paddling, and I didn't think that an all-day trip with no way to escape if a person were to get cold, bored or both was the best intro to frostbiting. But...hmmm, bet the Tugster would LOVE it. I'd already had the fun of introducing him to Richard when he'd first posted a picture of the RR. He'd clearly had the same response to the sight of this lovely little schooner as I did - plus we'd figured out last year that we have a mutual friend in Brian (remember Brian?), who I thought might come. And having enjoyed his meditations on the various working vessels in the harbor, I thought he'd be a great person to have along on an all-day sail. Think I was right, too! Turned out that Brian's daughters had a concert (now that's a good dad!), but I forgot that as a volunteer on the old boats at the South Street Seaport, of course he would know another friend of Richard's - she's an educator there, and it turned out she was the 4th & final person on the crew roster du jour.

Tugster & I met up succesfully at the Path station. We negotiated the icy streets of Jersey City only to find a locked gate & an apparently deserted Rosemary Ruth. Well, it was a little early...we renegotiated the icy streets in search of hot drinks, found 'em, and returned to the same scene...oh jeeze, had I somehow mistaken the date? Was this going to be one of the more mortifying moments of the winter? Well, I borrowed Tugster cell phone & of course Richard was down below, with an electric heater on and all the hatches closed. Phew. Maggie turned up shortly thereafter. The morning was glorious, but apparently everyone else was scared off by the cold!

Of course we owe them a debt of gratitude - it was only because so many people passed & were going to wake up, look out the window & kick themselves soundly that it was so nice...

Whatever the reason - we were all there & ready to go!



No dinghy needed at the Tottenville Marina - we'll leave that here...


When I'd left Brooklyn in the morning, there wasn't a breath of wind. I figured we'd be motoring - but as we got ready to go, a nice little breeze began to stir in just the right direction to sail off the dock. Sweet! I'd never done that in a schooner! Off with the sail covers, then up with the...CLUNK! What was THAT?


Oops. Right. That would be ice. Formerly water, in a bucket, on deck - introduce one reefing line & a couple of nice cold days & there you go.


Canadians aren't scared of ice. Richard had this one beaten into submission in a jiffy.


And up with the sails, and off we sailed - oh, ok, after a brief interlude of unfouling the mainsail topping lift from a tall piling, and a retrieval of a fisherman halyard that I nearly let get away...oops. Little rusty. Fortunately Richard's very nice to rusty crew. Anyways, topping lift freed & halyard retrieve, off we sailed into a perfect morning -


And I mean perfect. I mean, look at this - could you ask for a more promising morning for an all-day sail in January? It was definitely still below freezing, but not by much, and the breeze being considerate enough to be from the NW meant downwind to reaching most of the way - upwind could have gotten a little on the chilly side! As is was, once we were headed for the Narrows, Richard decided to raise the fisherman (that sail that you see stretched between the masts in those 3 sky shots earlier this week) - that sail goes all the way up to the head & catches the breezes in the lightest of air.


Richard gave me the helm while he helped raise the fisherman. Between the breeze & the powerful ebb, it seemed like we were flying south. We were the only recreational boat out that morning, but there were plenty of "big guys" - freighters and tankers and barges, oh my!

I handed the tiller back over to Richard shortly before we got to the first of the assorted vessels -


The first one we passed was a moored tug and barge. The barge guys looked like they really liked the RR. She has that effect on people.

We worked our way on over to the Brooklyn side of the channel - and we were happy to be there because suddenly, it seemed like morning rush hour, harbor style, had broken loose!

Here comes a car carrier, heading for the Kill Van Kull -

By the time that one had passed, this freighter was in the Narrows - btw, when a freighter's this far away & heading your way, it's WAY WAY WAY too late to think about crossing in front of it - we were very happy to be out of the channel nice & safe on the Brooklyn side.

Looking back up north - there goes the freighter, here comes a container ship out of the Kill - moving pretty fast - the tanker with the orange superstructure was also showing signs of stirring and I think there was another one in the anchorage that also had some smoke giving evidence of engines being on...this is why crossing the Kill van Kull is not one of my favorite things to do in a kayak in New York Harbor - it gets like this pretty often! You just have to wait & be patient, eventually there will be a break - but there's just an awful lot of gross tonnage passing through this narrow channel.

Tugster's camera was getting a good workout too - he seemed to be having a great time & I was already wondering what sort of meditations these would inspire.

The container ship blew past us - they were flying, look at that bow wake, and I WISH I'd taken a picture of their wake as it rocked the RR wildly, then traveled on to crash on the bridge footings & the Brooklyn seawall.

Finally, as the containership passed beneath the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, we saw our chance to cross, and grabbed it -

and on we went, under the bridge and out to the Lower Harbor!
part II to come!