Odalisque - Winter '04-'05 Logs

Winter 2004/ 2005 Logs

January 2nd
We tied up a 16 x 20 green tarp over the boom and around the life lines and down to the freeboard. I had taped carpet remnant patches over the stanchions and sharp hardware that the tarp would be exposed to. We used nylon twine to tie the grommets of he tarp under the hull, in a side to side fashion (not tying anything to the boat stands or blocks – no, no) back to itself on the other side.

The weather cooperated for this activity by being partly sunny near 40 F and the wind calm. A lot of duct tape was used to even out the enclosure created by the tarp at the aft end. This way the weather could get through the boat but most of the moisture would be repelled by the tarp. The bow was exposed and would later get covered in a foot of snow but that is why they make snow shovels. I was happy we did cover Odalisque but I know that I could have done a better job to build it a winter home had I the time (and money) to spend on such a project.

January 22nd – Saturday
The blizzard of 2005 arrives with strong winds and at least a foot of snow. I began to think about the braided nylon line that held the tarp down to Odalisque. Was it holding up?

January 26th – Wednesday
This was the first day I could manage to breakaway from my life in NYC to go out to Long Island to visit my mother and Odalisque. It had also been the second day of above freezing weather and I wanted to shovel off the preponderance of the snow from Odalisque’s bow and inspect the tarp set up. We arrived at the boatyard near 1700 hours with a fading steel blue, clear sky.

I was able to clear enough snow from the deck to board her and then shovel more than one foot of snow from her foredecks. Then I burrowed under the tarp toward the cockpit and pushed the frozen chunks of snow and ice off the tarpaulin with my back. It was clear to me that I had not supported the tarp enough from lifeline to lifeline, over the boom, as the ice chunks fell heavily on the drifted snow below.

January 27th – Thursday
My wife, Jessica, took my mother to the supermarket in the afternoon so I had a little time to check up on the boat in daylight. I bought some extra braided nylon twine and a razor blade for cutting the line, imagining I would have to retie a few spots. It was a cold day in winter with a high of maybe 20 degrees F. I heard jets going by overhead in a different way. It was so cold that the jet engines sounded as though they were right overhead in the crisp air. On my way to the boatyard I saw one of the saddest sights of my adult life. There, off the Hempstead Harbor Club, submerged in water was the protruding mast and spars of a sailboat that had sunk beneath the waves; there was no hull showing at all. I guessed the boat to be 25 to 35 feet in length but it was hard to tell. In previous decades of my life I might have chuckled at the misfortune of another (schadenfreud), but as a fellow sailboat owner I mourned silently for it. I now have an idea that there are many ways that a sailor has to think in order to keep his boat afloat. Any catastrophic failure of a through hull fitting could sink a bout in minutes. I was happy that our boat was on the hard.

At the boatyard I slipped under the tarp above decks. I took the main sheet remainder and tied it from lifeline to lifeline, over the boom. I had two bungee cords ready to do the same further forward. I reinforced the twine under the hull by taking in some line with a piece of 1 x 2 and wrapping and twisting it around the twine. I reinforced some of the lateral ribs of twine with the twine I had purchased. It was so cold I had to stop but she was ready for the next snowfall and I expect she will thrive. Fools and Irishmen are …

February somethingth, 2005

We have had more snow since the blizzard of January. I have not been able to get back to the boat since the last snow as I believe I should. To knock chunks of ice off the tarp and do a cursory snow shoveling of the bow. It is warming up above freezing during the day and freezing again at night. Not a happy situation for a boat exposed to the elements. Many other sailboats in the yard have even more makeshift tarps set over them then ours. Some of their lines have been severed by wind and ice and their tarps held down by the weight of the snow and ice that lurks there. The boat yard is a kind of sad but hopeful place in the winter.

— Caleb Davison