About

The first subject that I would like to tackle is to explain why am I doing this blog. One of the fun things about belonging to a sailing club like this is sharing stories, anecdotes and photographs. We all know that there are over 120 members in the club. I think it would be an interesting exercise to determine exactly how many people are associated with the club, when you include spouses, family members, and folks will go racing or sailing with members throughout the summer. I, myself, enjoy sharing the club primarily with Dawn Kelley, her daughter Morgan (who many might remember as the lady who was handling the mainsail on the Mary Dear during the 2015 Women’s Race, and who, upon hearing and seeing a thunderbolt, politely asked me to get her the f*** back to shore.), and my own children, Benjamin, Daniel, and Kaeleigh.

Of all of the people who are associated with the club, there are only 72 folks, as of this writing, who are associated with the MYC Facebook page. I’m presuming that many of our seasoned sailors are not Facebook aficionados, but love to read, as well as tell, a good sailing story. Additionally, they will probably like to see some of the photographs that have graced the Facebook pages.

While I know we have a terrific website, it doesn’t lend itself to sharing stories and photographs as easily as a blog might. Thus, my idea of an accessible means of sharing social stories and photographs was born.

2015 was a great year for me as far as MYC was concerned. At the beginning of the year I was able to launch the 13 foot homemade wooden boat, the Mary Dear, and it taught me a whole different way of sailing. One mainsail and not a lot of underwater weight. One of the most exciting days that I have had sailing on a lake was during the 2015 women’s race. A video of that race can be found HERE.

In the middle of the summer I learned that I had been moved from being a racing member to a regular member. While I still enjoy racing and will do it as often as I can, this change in status allowed me to enjoy various other forms of sailing, read: Saoirse.

Last, but not least, I was elected as the 2016 Commodore for the club. This got me thinking about what I could do for the club beyond ringing the little ship’s bell and running meetings and making sure that the tarp over the grills doesn’t blow away.

One of my first ideas was to help increase the communication throughout the club. While this blog will not be a source of official information, the Rhumblings and the MYC website serves that purpose, it will be a place to share our stories and pictures about what is going on at the club. I am welcoming everyone to send me stories and photographs that I can share on this blog. I will also be looking for some co-editors to help me keep the blog timely and up-to-date. I also hope to make sure that Facebook information shows up here and information from this blog appears on Facebook.

So why the Massabesic Swim Club? First of all, I am a charter member of the swim club, though not necessarily while I was a member of the club. (And for purposes of statute of limitations, the stories that will appear herein do not necessarily reflect actual occurrences and swim meets, wink-wink). What with the way the wind blows sometimes on the lake, we all are potential inductees into this swanky organization.

My first foray into the sailing adventure was when I was 19 and I had access to my father-in-law’s Sunfish. He was a simple sailor himself and taught me what he could. Essentially, I thought that all sailing was done with the wind off your stern, therefore I never went very far and very fast. But, alas, circumstances made it so that I lost access to some of my toys.

Fast forward to 2009 and I was driving to Peterborough and saw that a gentleman had a 16 foot AMF dinghy for sale on the side of the road. It had previously been used at the private Dublin School, for use by the high school students that attended that school. As you can imagine, it was meticulously taken care of!

Dawn and I learned how to sail from books and watching other sailors on Dublin Lake. It was then that I joined the Dublin Lake Swim Club. We learned about points-of-sail, reefing and even how to bottom-paint and how to tip the roll-on paint with a brush for that ultra-smooth finish.

Dawn enjoyed sailing with me, but she was having trouble getting over her preconceived notions about sailing. For her, sailing was sitting back and enjoying the sun, sipping on boat drinks, and reading the Boston Globe Sunday edition. All of this ducking-when-the-boom-came-around was not for her. It finally came to a head, so to speak, on a sunny Sunday at the Auburn boat launch.

Dawn had filled up a big cooler with sandwiches and soda. She had her Boston Sunday Globe, her sunscreen and her sunglasses. She forewarned me that she was going to be sitting in front of the mast and it was my job to keep the jib sheets from tangling up around her sneakers. Despite the 10-15 knot winds, she was confident that I would be able to single hand our little 16 foot yacht so that she could read the Style Section.

I was up for the task, but I needed just a little bit of help getting away from the launch. The Auburn launch was surrounded by growth that the conservationists wanted the boaters to stay away from. This left a channel about 20 feet wide and 30 feet out to the water that I was going to have to negotiate. There was too much wind to paddle against and we didn’t have a motor. I put Dawn at the tiller and I was at the mast getting ready to haul the mainsail up.

It all started to go pretty well until a puff hit us hard just as we exited the channel. I was still at the mast, tying off the halyard, when the boat buried her leeward rail. I was too far away from the main sheet to let it go so I yelled to Dawn to move the tiller. There is still some debate, to this day, about which way I told her to turn. Nevertheless, over the boat went.

In my 10 years of sailing that little Sunfish three or four times a summer, I had managed to never tip that boat over. I had read plenty about capsize recovery and now it was my chance to put theory into action. While I swam around to the centerboard, Dawn went about collecting all of the PFD’s, coolers, shoes, paddles, and the Boston Sunday Globe, which was now a big sodden brick of paper.

The dinghy came up out of the water like a champ. Everything worked just as it was supposed to. This included the mainsail, which I had neglected to un-cleat before I righted the dinghy. Away she went, filled to the gunwales with water. Our bailing bucket had gone to the bottom of the lake. Fortunately, I was leaning into the dinghy on my stomach and was able to reach into the boat and I un-cleated the mainsail.

We now had to get the boat back to shore so that we could drain the water. I can honestly say that I have never been so grossed out as I was walking on the bottom of that lake, pulling the boat back to shore. Our feet sank approximately a foot into the muck at the bottom of the lake. We couldn’t wait to get out of the water and re-live the scene from Stand By Me where the boys all check each other for bloodsuckers. We got the boat up onto the trailer, drained it, and cast off once again. Because her Boston Globe was now good for nothing, Dawn was a little more involved in the sailing and we actually had a great afternoon drying ourselves out and sailing around the Auburn end of the lake.

The final postscript to our induction into the Massabesic Swim Club was when we got back to shore. We beached the dinghy and Dawn said that she would hold onto the bow line while I went to get the truck and trailer. As I started to walk toward the parking lot I saw one of the fine members of the waterworks patrol standing near the dock. I scurried back to Dawn, who was standing in about 2 inches of water at the shore. Under my breath I kept trying to tell her to move to higher ground. She wasn’t hearing me over the wind. She told me to stop wasting time and go get the truck and trailer. The kindly officer, who obviously had better communication skills than me, called out to her “I think he is trying to tell you to get out of the water before you end up with $100 fine.” He had such a succinct way of putting things.

This was our induction into the Massabesic Swim Club, albeit the civilian fraternity. As a member of MYC I have also become a charter member of the Marion Harbor Swim Club, but that’s a story for another day.

What I really learned with the 16-foot dinghy was how much I didn’t know about sailing. Along came Groupon and a $95 sailing lesson at the Courageous Sailing Center on Boston Harbor.

The young coed from Full Sail College took me out in a Rhodes 19 keelboat on a blustery day in May. The moment we got out into the harbor a big puff came along and the boat healed to leeward. I scrambled for the high side while my instructor looked at me curiously. “Haven’t you ever been on a keelboat before?” she asked. I had to admit that I had not. She assured me that the boat was not going to go over; she and many of her fellow instructors have tried to do so many times without success. That was it. I was hooked.

What followed was a succession of keelboats, starting with an Ensenada 20, then another one that we used to make one fairly good boat. Wanting a sailboat with a cabin that was in better shape, we bought an O’Day 20 that we sailed around many of the lakes in southern New Hampshire, including Massabesic. I learned how to raise the mast in about 45 minutes, and lower the mast in about 25 minutes with that boat.

But the siren song of the sea call to me. I wanted a keelboat that I could sail in the ocean as well as trailer to the lakes. In Limerick Maine I found an O’Day 23 which still graces our club under the gentle hand of George Ivas.

Ah, but a shoal draft keeled boat does not enjoy getting on and off of the trailer. I first brought the 23 over to the Auburn boat launch, the one we enjoyed more because it was less crowded. I could barely get the bottom of the boat wet on the trailer, so she wasn’t coming off there.

We went over to the Candia Road boat launch and discovered that there was a crater caused by the power boaters. The stern lifted slightly off of the trailer but could not get the boat’s bow off. I had to give up on the process. Unfortunately, the boat was now sitting about 15° off center. Nothing I did could get the boat back straight on the trailer. Add this to the number of other boaters (all power boaters of course) waiting to use the launch. I had to give up. I sat there on the tailgate looking at the poor O’Day and wondering how was going to drive it back home, a trip of 70 miles.

Dawn had the idea that we should go over to that place where all the other sailboats are and see if we could use their launch. She surmised that they must have the perfect boat ramp for sailboats because, obviously, that’s all they do. I had to give in to her suggestion, even though I was concerned about losing face in front of other highly professional sailors that they must have at that club.

As we were driving around the traffic circle, and I was hoping that the O’Day wouldn’t fall off the trailer, Dawn asked me why I had never thought about joining the club. I told her that I had heard from reliable sources that it costs a couple of thousand dollars a year to be a member, and that they had a seven year waiting list. That was more than I paid for the boat!

We pulled into the Massabesic yacht club, and looked around. Finally, we spied a kindly looking gentleman who looked like he owned the place. It was Mark Benson. We asked if we could borrow their boat ramp to square our boat away on the trailer. I think I even offered him money. He immediately gave me permission to do so, and even offered to hold the bow line to make sure the boat got back on the trailer straight.

While I readied the truck to back into the water Dawn stood on the dock talking with Mark. I backed the crooked boat and trailer into the water and, just like Dawn suggested, the ramp was tailor-made for sailboat launching and recovery. I pulled the boat out of the water and prepared to secure it to the trailer, all nice and straight and looking proud.

Dawn walked up to me and punched me in the arm. “Mark said the dues are $300 a year and there is probably an opening available right now if you are willing to be a racing member.” I had a pleasant conversation with Mark and he explained how the club worked. It sounded like it was just what we were looking for.

Mark even suggested that I could put the boat back in the water, tied up to the dock, and enjoy sail if I was so inclined. He gave me the number for the membership committee chairman. As I started to back the boat back into the water Mark walked up to the driver’s window and held a finger up. “Just one question. Do you owe anyone in the club any money?” I told him that I didn’t think that I did, because I didn’t know anyone who was a member of the club. “Okay” said Mark, “you can back her in. If you owed anybody in the club any money, you probably wouldn’t get voted in” he said with a sly grin.

That was my introduction to the Massabesic Yacht Club. My effort to give back will be to share this blog with all of you so we can all revel in the excitement as well as the relaxation that comes with our sport.

Please feel free to send me an email if you have any comments, suggestions or additions to this blog.