post-sail
12 June 2014 | Orcas Island
The sail made for us by Hasse and Co. in Port Townsend, our faithful offense to the bruiser winds all the way down the coast, was ripped off the boat while safely harbored in Judd Cove. It’s almost ironic how after 7 months in Santa Ana’s and fool’s anchorage and Murder Bays and storms in Morro, this would be the scenario for our shore-tore-lore.
Well it was swept under. It tore on our own equipment after Vince left the boat just for a few hours. I called the sail loft-- we just had the sail made ( last year) and they were more than helpful, encouraging us to fix the sail ourselves because that's the way they make their sails: easy for sailors to repair. Luckily, we were safe in a cove and not at sea.
With a quick briefing (debriefing?), we did not have to plan a-few-grand-vacation to Port Townsend--Though a road trip did sound enticing.
Meanwhile, on the dock, we carefully cut our sticky-patch opposites of opaque sail material. Vince held the headboard overhead, which weighs damn near 20 lbs., to match our edges by the suns’ definition. Did we get smart fast? We tied some line to cleats and propped the boathook through an eyelet to suspend the thing there as we passed big needles, with pliers and palm, through the cloth.
Problem solving. That is the essence of sailing. Wind changes? Pull in on that line, adjust, problem solved. Need a knot that will slip easily when I want it to and not at all when I don’t, bowline, problem solved.
It’s rewarding BECAUSE it offers so many challenges.
Right now, we are mostly in the challenge mode. That is merely because we are not sailing. It’s an end to its own means, as well is it never-ending … like a snake with an appetite for its own tail.
Now, under the awning of our Orcas Island beach RV, Vince stitches away at the borders of our double-sided patches. With Awl and plank, he sews new hems and patches his sail. After watching him, I can’t say I am dying to offer my help. It looks miserable, but more importantly, he looks like a soulful sailor. Mending your sails is important on simple, economic levels, but also complex, symbolic levels. When you have had the experience, you have to do the tedious work to process it afterwards. Almost consequential, it seems to be a pattern of our lives; how something we experience proceeds to the minutiae of digesting what our experiences have given us. It’s after the album’s last note, it’s just after the last chapter’s page turns blank. For me it is memory. It is the expansion and vividity of the lessons we have had, and to make what was, what we made of it. We are truly in control.
Any how. It is a sail repair! Whoo!
We got all the crap off the boat so that we may keep moving forward. We are working and living together. I am quite enjoying a brand new form of ‘height gardening’… and Vince, well he’s sewing and working in close proximities. I sometimes have a weird dream about mountains of folded sails covered in mud. It is unexplained.