[Rhodes22-list] Awful quiet on the list.

Steve Alm salm at mn.rr.com
Mon Oct 27 00:20:19 EST 2003


Rummy,

Good call. That's exactly what I was doing today--hauling out the fleet:
The Rhodes, the pontoon, Prindle cat, Lazar, a fishing boat and the dock.

The day was cursed from the beginning.  Everything that could go wrong, did.
First, I got up at the crack of noon (you know I'm not a morning person)
only to discover that my Rhodes trailer had been towed away from the front
of my house.  Apparently, there's an ordinance about "unattended" trailers
that I was unaware of.  I know, I know, ignorance of the law is no excuse,
but shit, man, it was towed YESTERDAY--the day before I needed it.  It's
been parked there for two months. I guess this is the "fall clean-up."  Two
hours and $187 later, after getting lost looking for the damn impound lot, I
arrived at the lake.

First, we took out the pontoon with a rented trailer.  It's an easy job but
the boat ramp was crowded and I had to wait in line for 45 minutes.  I hate
Sundays on lake Minnetonka!

Then we went for the Rhodes and took down the mast at the dock.  Missing
tools and hardware made that a full hour job.  By now, we were losing our
daylight and we only had one boat out.  We took a very chilly boat ride to
the ramp (last Sunday, it was warm and beautiful, but no wind for sailing)
and by the time we got there it was dark.  I'm a pretty good trailer-backer,
but in the dark, it's a struggle.  I have the typical musician's van with no
rear or side windows (shaggin' wagon) and I had a terrible time seeing what
I was doing.  We finally got the boat on the trailer, and as we were pulling
out, I discovered that I had not shut off the motor!  So, I'm panicking
because it's out of the water, and I make an olympic gymnastics move from
the driver's seat, through the back of the van and out the rear doors,
tight-roped across the tongue (extended) and flipped myself onto the bow and
tumbled back to the cockpit to kill the motor.  It was then that I
discovered that not one, but BOTH up-haul AND down-haul rudder lines had
just broke and we were dragging the rudder on the cement.  As I struggled to
get the rudder up, of course, it came out of the gudgeons and fell in the
water.  Christ Almighty!  Why have You forsaken me?

After recovering the tiller/rudder, we pulled the boat out of the water and
towed it home with the four-way flashers on the whole way because the night
lights on the trailer didn't work.

So now we're pulling the boat back to Judi's (our co-owner) yard and backing
it into place, (and struggling in the dark, with much shouting and
everybody's in a bad mood by now) and her neighbor comes out and starts
bitching about where the boat is being stored--too close to their house.

So now we have this big argument with the neighbor.  JUST SHOOT ME!  The
rest of the boats and the dock are still in the water and it's going to snow
this week.

And the Vikings lost!!!

F**k me,
Slim

On 10/26/03 6:45 AM, "R22RumRunner at aol.com" <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:

> I've been scratching my increasingly balding head trying to figure out why
> the list has been so quiet. I finally figured it out this morning. All our
> northern sailing friends are either scrambling to take their boats out for the
> season or they already have them on the hard.
> I guess it's just up to us southerners to keep the chatter alive.
> Ed, I hear that Yankee Clippers auto-pilot should be installed this weekend.
> 
> Rummy
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list



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