Odalisque - June 26, 2004 Log

Log 2004– June 26th

Saturday June 26, 2004 – “Inauspicious Start”

Emboldened by my morning visit to Odalisque at her guest mooring where I found only a light drip coming from the stuffing box I decided to take Jessica on a sail that afternoon after she arrived from NYC. Something terrified me about the strong NW wind or at least caught my attention as we drove to Hempstead Harbor Club. I had sailed in this harbor many times in many circumstances and knew that the NW wind had a very large fetch coming all the way from Rye NY. I thought it odd and storm like even though it was a beautiful and sunny day, although windy.

We got to the boat and started motoring in 2 – 4’ waves caused by the wide fetch. It was a bit wild and we bobbed about, through and over some of the waves the wind provided. I noticed that the water temperature gauge seemed high so I pulled out the new genoa which only made things worse as it was probably blowing near 20 knots. So I refurled the genny and started motoring back to the mooring field. After missing the mooring the first time Jessica asked me about the smoke that was coming from the companionway. We were under crewed and not ready for this experience and probably should not have set out in the first place. The engine choked itself with smoke and stopped just as we again tried to reach our mooring. We did not make the stick and were bobbing about in 7200 pound boat in a mooring field with no engine and no confidence to try to use our sails to get to mooring. We were both near panic and I felt as though we were out of control and destined to bang into another more expensive boat or at least run aground on shore. I called the club on the VHF radio tell them such and ask for assistance. With Jessica at the helm during the confusion we found an empty mooring stick and made it and secured ourselves. The clubs launch circled us and told us to stay there.

We sat and had a beer as we waited for the smoke to clear from the cabin. We also tried to look at the bright side of this near disaster. We were uninsured, had an overheated possibly damaged engine, but we were close to our home port and had not run aground thanks to the Vice Commodores mooring being temporarily vacant. Still, this was more depressing news on top of the stuffing box leaking we had an Atomic 4 engine with overheating problems or worse. The sea was so messy that day that when the launch finally did come to pick us up his transom was lifted up by one wave and banged into the teak toe rail on our starboard aft corner and broke some pieces that had been so lovingly finished.

— Caleb Davison