Sour sweet

Last night we went to pick up our awards for DRYA at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club and it was a grand affair. We managed to clean up by taking 1st in w/l, point to point, J120 overall, and boat of the year on B course. Hardware won included the H C MacGregor and WJR Trophy. Most of the crew managed to come so it was an evening that was made that much sweeter. After the affair we migrated to the Bayview bar and had some celebratory hummers. In general it was a great evening. It has been 22 years since I have been racing my own boats and this the best season I have ever had. Rod Weston was also with me during that time so it was wonderful he was there that night.

The same morning the first boat I raced on, a 45 foot New York 32 built in 1936 called Sapphire had been sold and was being shipped to Maine to her new home. She will be with 3 other NY32's and will be well taken care of. Penny Breck, daughter of the owner who bought her in 1968, Bob Neesly Sr., was no longer healthy enough to take care of her in manner that was needed. I went down to say goodbye to an old friend. I did my first Mackinaw race in her and have many happy memories. She was the only boat that I ever won a Mackinaw in. That year we took our class but also the entire CCA division. In the picture on the right taken in 1971 is me doing foredeck finishing in front of Mackinaw Island.

Garbage in but not garbage out

This is a story my crew asked me to post since they thought it was so funny.

To prepare for the the trip down to Florida I had the main winch drum pads resandblasted by Harken because the lines were slipping too easy. They came back by UPS and were delivered to my back porch. When I got home I opened up the box and examined the winch to make sure it was done correctly. I left the other winch drum in the box. Yesterday was holloween so my wife Carol did not put out the garbage until early the next morning. When I came out later that morning I asked her about the box on the porch and she said that she had thought the box was empty so she took it out to the street. Needless to say the garbage truck had already picked up the trash. I heard the truck on the next street and stopped the truck. The two guys in the truck said that if I followed them to the dump out at 29 Mile and Gratiot (I live in Grosse Pointe) We got up there and they dumped out the compacted garbage. It was line about 4 feet tall and 80 feet long. It was quite the detective job finding it. We would find mail at certain addresses close to us and dig a while. Occasionally they would bring over a large bulldozer to spread it out. By luck we found it after 20 minutes. It only had a small part broken but it was intact. On the way home my hands stunk so bad that I stopped by Doyle off of I94 to wash them. When I told them my story they just could not stop laughing. One of the guys kept telling me not to stand too close since I smelled pretty bad. Oh well - it was a painful process but I did get it back although Carol was too happy with the stream of four letter words that came out of my mouth this morning.