Indian summer is forecast for next week; but yesterday was definitely fall, with the cold front keeping temperatures in the 40s and low 50s, seeming colder in a fresh breeze. We were wearing Polartec under our anoraks, and I had even dug out socks for the first time in months.
There is no official data marker at North Point, but the readings at Waukegan, seven miles to the south, in late morning when we were preparing to move GANNET to be hauled from the water, were wind of twenty knots, gusting twenty-six. This is more than I like for maneuvering in close quarters, particularly in reverse--another advantage of moorings over slips--so we turned GANNET around by hand so that she pointed bow out. Not having a neighbor beside us, GANNET was just short enough to clear the next slip as we let the wind do most of the work. Then with Carol doing a fine job on the helm and me walking the boat forward, we were able to exit the slip and power to Skipper Bud’s side of the harbor, where we tied to the fuel dock.
I had the helm most of the way and docked the boat.
I’ve been reading about being blind in one eye, which I presently am. To my surprise I’ve learned that in most states it is legal to drive with vision in only one eye, something I am not tempted to do. And that having vision in one eye affects depth perception only for the first twenty feet, which means, of course, on a twenty-four foot boat, pretty much your entire world.
Although I was able to get GANNET to the fuel dock, I was quite happy to let one of Skipper Bud’s men take the boat the last hundred yards to where she would be lifted from the water,
particularly as this involved a U-turn and backing into a confined haul-out space. Once I showed him how to operate the Torqeedo and warned him that the little boat is easily pushed by the wind, he handled GANNET like an artist.
Boats as small at GANNET are taken from the water not by the travel lift, but by an oversize fork-lift generally used to launch and retrieve dry-stack stored power boats.
I did not anti-foul GANNET. She already had a coating of VC17, a hard fresh water anti-fouling paint which can not be over-coated with anything else and which I intend to remove. I’m not sure when the former owner applied it. But from the way the boat moved, I expected that the bottom had remained clean;
and as she emerged from the water, she was, with only some thin slime, which is not surprising since she hasn’t moved from her slip in the past month.
The included pressure wash didn’t take long, and GANNET was soon on her way to her trailer
for the long, long winter.