the Hermit Island Wayfarer Rally
Small Point, Maine * August 13-20, 2005
Uncle Al's Scrap Book: Tuesday, the 16th - 4
pics by Julia and Al Schonborn

... Bold Dick Rock (one of at least two so named in the vicinity) which ...
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... reminded us of our fearless leader, Mr. Harrington.
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We had thought of doing a circumnavigation but had second thoughts.
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We saw some truly impressive breakers rearing up as ...
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... they clashed with the beaches. No wonder we had seen surfers in the area!
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Oddly enough, we decided not to try to pinch around Small Point on port ...
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... without ...
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... tacking.
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Just as well, perhaps.
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Once we had cleared Small Point and Bald Head (not named for anyone in our group, I'm sure!), we saw the rest of our group who had taken the more direct offshore route back home. It looked pretty and peaceful but on our boat, the only nautical misadventures of the week were about to befall us.

First, we rounded the north end of Hermit Island in a freshening southerly breeze on the now incoming tide. To avoid the worst of the wind shadow of Hermit Island, we steered a closehauled course about 50 yards to windward of Goose Rock.  I decided to do lookout duties on the bow. Boy, do those submerged rocks come up fast when you're going at hull speed and with the tide! This was the only time all week I raised my voice at Chuck: "Tack! Tack! Tack!" I screamed. Chuck responded with admirable speed but not before our centreboard had been raised to the half-up position by the rocks. Since we were now about to go up The Branch with its many shoals, the Goose Rock incident reminded me to put our tiller shock cord on its looser setting so that the blade would be able to kick up some if we should hit bottom with the rudder.
Soon, we were zipping along, tacking up The Branch and making great progress with an extra push from the tide. In fact, we were getting such a nice breeze, that I was moved to add some vang tension to flatten the mainsail. Each of the four of us was wedged into our own little quarter of the boat, and only Chuck, our helm, was sitting on windward deck when we were on port tack, But I had control of the mainsheet and was having fun keeping the boat level by playing the sheet. Things were going swimmingly - poor choice of words! sorry, Chuck!

 And they were about to go even more swimmingly!! We were again on port tack and were just going to tack around the outermost of a group of moored boats to get back among these boats which were a (fairly) sure indicator of sailably deep water. But before we could do so, our board hit mud in a water depth of about one foot. We quickly raised the board, still hoping to tack. Alas, the rudder then hit bottom and the wind pivoted us around. "Gybe ho!" I yelled but had no time for the recommended "Duck your beanies, kiddies!!" before the boom whipped across and met Chuck just trying to get off his perch on the port side deck. Chuck now discovered, in the wettest possible way, that a vanged boom sits lower to the deck and that you really can't fight with a boom and main gybing in a breeze.

So Chuck was the only one in our group who went for a swim at Hermit Island that week. As he went overboard, he clutched the tiller just long enough to pull it from the rudder head and overboard. Then he understandably let go of the tiller which floated away as he reached to grab the boat. We immediately pulled the board full up and let both sails luff to stabilize the boat in a drifting position, albeit drifting towards a couple of moored dinghies. Putting the ladies on fend-off detail, Al heeled the boat towards Chuck's side but it's no easy task to climb back into a Wayfarer that has not been filled with water due to a capsize. In the end, with Al hauling and Chuck scrabbling, we got Chuck back aboard, and could now turn our thoughts to how we would navigate among wall-to-wall moored boats with a healthy breeze but without use of a rudder.
 
Breaking off the handle of the paddle so that it would fit into the rudder head was quickly relegated to a position of last resort. And then Al had an idea, the ...
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... spinnaker pole!!! Quickly, Julia took the pole from its storage position along the boom (where Chuck had briefly tried use it like one of those overhead handholds found in subways, in a futile attempt to remain above water, until Julia had urgently pointed out that this would not keep Chuck out of the water but might well capsize the boat to add to our dilemma). Julia was now called upon to demonstrate multi-tasking at its best: Still using an elbow to fend off a moored dinghy that we had drifted into, Julia quickly began to untie the pole from the uphaul and downhaul. Al, meanwhile, had fallen in love with his brilliant jury rig idea and was urging Julia to grab the camera and record this fine nautical milestone for posterity!!! Which she did (above) admirably.

 The rest was a piece of cake: having managed to fit our "tiller", we put down a bit of board, pulled in the sails a bit, eased away from the dinghy we had been stuck to, got some speed up and tacked. Now all that remained was trying to find our tiller. Luckily, the south wind and the tide flowing the exact opposite way had more or less cancelled each other out, and we soon spied our tiller approximately where we had lost it. The little dear was duly retrieved and fitted, and we completed our trip back to the dock without further incident.

All in all, we were pretty pleased with ourselves: we had gotten into a tricky situation and escaped from it without damage to our boat (if you don't count the fact that Chuck had got wet and later realized he had likely re-cracked two ribs!). We had not pronged any other boats, and had rescued ourselves. As we wedged SHADES into a space at the dock that Kit Wallace kindly created for us by moving Ab faB a bit, we certainly felt we had earned the by now traditional Guinness break at Chuck and Ginny's site.
But our day's excitement was not yet over. As Al pulled the main halyard off its rack, the tail loop, which Al had noted as being pretty frayed that very morning but had been too lazy to fix, ripped at just the perfect moment to allow the wire part of the halyard to disappear up into the mast as the main came down. And this was Al's new Proctor mast where the halyards (fortunately, at most times!) no longer run up and down the sail track. Horrible visions of trying to find a fish tape, or failing that, lowering the mast each morning and evening to tie and untie the main to and from the top of the mast, danced in Al's head. But first, a long shot hope: Al would try to push the wire back down the mast. So we lowered the mast and took it off its pin so that we would be able to rotate it to avoid rivets and other inside-the-mast obstructions. Surprisingly, the halyard let itself be pushed back down the mast, and with only a few shakes and rotations to get past rivets and such, Al ...  
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... with kind assistance from Bill and Kit (white shirt) soon had all of the wire back inside the mast.
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Now all that remained was for Al to grab the wire as it went past its exit hole, ...
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... pull out the loop, re-attach a halyard tail and voilà, everyone was quite ready for a beer. Thanks for the help and the beer, Kit, Bill and Chuck!
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Meanwhile Dave Nelson had ferried Mary Asselstine ashore where she was greeted and helped onto the dock by Tom Erickson.
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(l to r) André, Margie McKelvey, Nel Graefe
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Charles (l) and Bill ferry ...
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... Alan back to the ...
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... dock. Word is that Alan and Tim ran aground on the way in. When Tim jumped overboard to help get the boat unstuck, he hit a sinkhole and went in over his knees in sucking mud. A sobering thought.
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Tom Erickson puts his baby to bed.
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Mary (l) and Patsy check out the action as ...
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... the Nelsons ...
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... prepare to tuck their baby into a spot next to SHADES, while ...
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... Krystal, Josh and Scott carry the gear ashore.
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This was lobster night for most of the gang - see Bill's, Tim's or Monique's photos for a record of this - but the heretic Jordans and the Schonborns are no great fans of lobster, and headed off to Bath for a repeat of the pizza experience to be followed by an early night and some well earned sleep. As we left the camp, the tide had largely come in, and we got a lovely view of The Branch from in front of the camp store.
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The zoom lens even picks out our Wayfarers at the dock (l).
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