I have changed the way I do MASCF. I now only take a tent and a sleeping bag – no stove, no provisions. Just sailing gear, a cooler and libations. Easier. After a fitful night of sleeping among the sonorous snorers of St. Michaels (I now pack earplugs every year) at dawn one can go to the Steamboat House for cheap coffee and donuts (gratis), or walk a few pleasant blocks through the morning mist in town, and get a good coffee and omelette for a few bucks. At The Blue Crab cafe, where one is apt to meet fellows of like mind and demeanor.
On the walk back, take a shower and a stroll along the docks.
Another change made over the years is to begin sailing as soon as possible. I used to hang around the museum for all the events, which are fun, but that meant I was often late getting on the water. Now I go sailing right after breakfast and don’t come back until time for dinner. It’s wonderful sailing, with beautiful boats coming and going to make a stunning view.
Zigzag along the docks – an appreciative audience waves and takes photos. In small boats like mine the technical challenge of threading docks and the mooring field is fun, hones handy skills. Reach across the Miles River when the wind is up, break free of the crowd to take deep breaths again, the sound of wind and waves absent of human chatter.
There’s a certain logic to this. The festival has become so well attended that finding dock space is like playing musical chairs. The moment you move a boat to use it, another will slide in to take your place. Someone is always circling nearby, looking for a slip. Once you slip the lines and pull out, may as well stay out.
Around noon the fleet will embark and swarm out to you in earnest. Boats everywhere. You will have missed the instructions for the race course, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t care, primarily, and secondly the course will likely change, as is it does today. There is so little wind today at the start, the committee shrewdly at the last minute shortens the course by half. As I’ve said before, it’s not a race, it’s a parade. Prizes will be awarded, true, but not just to the fastest boats.
After the race, many who have not been on the water all day will stay out, remembering again how nice it is to be free of land. “Oh, right, this is nice.” There’s a lot of cruising in close company to admire each other’s boats. The last of the cold front that brought the rain last night drains away, the skies clear, barely enough wind left to fill a light sail.
Then dinner, always a pleasant affair with congratulations, and much giving of thanks. It’s a devout congregation. A sort of religion, the people of small hand-made boats, and a tent revival. Very Quaker. The gods are fickle, but the ministers are kind.
After dinner, Webb Chiles gave a talk this year. He does routinely what few of us would do, ever, though some might like to. Around the world alone, over and over, in a too small boat. The “monastery of the sea” he aptly calls it.
Rightly so.
Amen
I’m sorry to throw this in this comment section, I came across your post 14 years ago about adding a topsail to your melonseed, but I haven’t found the search term to pull up any posts you did back then, about your experience with one.
BTW, have you seen David Cecelski’s blog post about the history of the Carolina shadboats adding them to their boats?
Did you do any blog posts showing the topsail on your boat, and your experiences?
Anyway, in all the things I’ve read so far about this added sail, I can’t visualize how the sails are stowed, heading out…are they ever left fastened to the mast or only brought in if the winds are too strong? I ask because of the comment that the topsail is raised by its own halyard at the mast peak.
I get that the clew is secured to the end of the sprit and tied down at the mast base, but from the few things I’ve seen and read about them, it isn’t clear to me whether they’re always in use, or only used when the light wind need is there.
Thank you for your reply!
Your watercolor talent is amazing.
No worries, all the comments get forward to me inbox. This will probably take some back and forth, so I’ll email you directly. Short answer to all of your questions is “yes” – which sometimes means both are true even when one answer seems to exclude the other.
And I do spend a lot of time reading Cecelski’s terrific blog and saw that post. Wish he’d written it before I did mine, would have made some things easier. I made an in-person pilgrimage to the Newport News Mariner’s Museum to see one on display, but they only had the hull, not the rigged.
Glad you like the watercolors. I will surely get back to them when boating season is over.