Brightwork Blues and Fantastic Sailing
Friday 25 September 2020
We started the day with some sanding and scraping on our “brightwork”. I’m not at all sure why the varnished teak areas of the boat are called that—maybe it just sounds better than teak. In some areas the varnish was lifting away from the wood, a sign that water has been getting in somehow. So we needed to do something and we started on it today. Varnishing is not my idea of a good time and, by all indications, Mike is not too thrilled about it either. My theory is that boat enjoyment is inversely proportional to the square feet of teak that you have on your vessel. (I feel that I should insert an equation here but I will spare you) Thus, almost no teak—you have a wonderful time with your boat. Lots of teak and your boat enjoyment takes a big hit. After a couple of hours we quit for the day. It will still be there tomorrow...
The day took a sharp turn for the better when we joined my brother Rod for a sail on his boat “Summerfly”. (By the way, Rod’s vessel has almost no teak on the outside at all.) We set off from the dock and motored out into Greenwich Bay. Despite the light winds, we decided to try to sail to Wickford. As we went along, the wind speed increased and we were sailing up-wind beautifully with flat water. After entering Wickford Harbor, we headed back to Greenwich Cove, somewhat concerned about the time. We made swift progress back and even poled out the genoa and sailed ‘wing on wing’ for a large portion of the journey. We were pleased with ourselves as we managed to ‘smoke’ a larger boat sailing near us. They even cut the two green buoys on the way back into the bay, but they didn’t manage to catch up with us. Are we competitive?
Gloria
East Greenwich, RI
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