[Rhodes22-list] the Crawford adventure begins (for a change of pace)

[Robert Quinn]

{:>)

Such a tale!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "stan" <stan at rhodes22.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 5:00 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] the Crawford adventure begins (for a change of 
pace)


Rose picked Frone and Andrea Crawford up at the bus depot in Edenton.  It 
stops here once a year following leap year. Then loaned them her car so they 
could go get breakfast followed by a little gas(oline) and other supplies in 
case they should see another sunrise.

Meantime, back at the plant, the American crew (South) were all over the 
boat trying to get it finished on time.  (The definition of 'on time' in 
Spanish is manana.)

By afternoon everything was as good as it was going to get.  The priest said 
a few words and there were a few flowers tossed to soothe Neptune but no 
bashing of Rum across the bow since the hull was freshly painted and besides 
the boat was not a virgin.

After the formal farewells they shoved off the Midway Drive ramp dock taking 
part of the breakwater timbers to port as they made the sharp turn into sly 
Albemarle Sound and headed East by Noreast.  At this point I would be 
adding, "and we never head from then again".  But a funny thing happened to 
us on our way home from Norfolk.

Costco had gotten in a batch of Magnolia trees (hard to buy in this part of 
the South) for $70 and I thought that was a bargain and was going to buy a 
few to put outside the plant since Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have become 
my neighbors across the street and Brunswick my new neighbor to the south. 
I was toying with the idea of changing the company name to Glass Magnolias 
Boat Works.  By the time we got there Costco had marked these trees down 
twice, all the way down to $29 - very hard for a kid from the real 
depression, to resist.  So I bought out the entire supply and was moving 
half of them down to Edenton.

Those of you who know US 17 in this area of the country know it thinks it is 
an Interstate.  It has a beautiful rest area - probably the country's most 
unique rest area in that it rests both cars and boats. We can never resist 
stopping there each time we make the Virginia Beach shopping trip, to admire 
the boats, this time rafted three deep with all bows pointing north, and to 
feed the stray cats.

At this age I am no longer a womanizer (well not as much) and only have eyes 
for Rhodes.  So I instantly woke Rose up with. "You are not going to believe 
this."  Beyond the monster sailing yachts my rhodes trained eyes saw a pop 
top enclosure and a Bimini and Red self cover furling sails.

The Crawfords were dumbfounded and promised to pay the balance due as soon 
as they made it home.  We explained it was a chance encounter and gave them 
what little ice was left in our van ice box.

They said they were sailing along the Sound like pros when the wind suddenly 
made a 180 degree turn and all hell broke loose.  And they got drenched as 
the boat performed like Mario Fiori's former submarine and they made it to 
Elizabeth City that first day without a rudder failure. With the late start 
they had had, the only way I figured they could have gotten to Elizabeth 
City the first day was to have done what the lady who did so well at the NY 
Marathon did - take the subway. By the second night they had made it to the 
Rt. 17 Rest area and it was hard for us to believe their horror story 
because the boat looked absolutely beautiful sitting there in its outside 
rafting dockage, the pop top enclosure looked beautiful, the Bimini looked 
beautiful, beaming Andrea looked beautiful, even Frone looked beautiful.  So 
you will have to wait for the whole truth of their full adventure from their 
own report.   As we drove away looking back at that neat Rhodes strutting 
its stuff amongst the likes of an O'Day 36 and all those other big guys, it 
made me almost want to give up the sailboat business and go cruising. (But I 
recalled Nixon's haunting words to the press and wondered who would the List 
have to kick around if I gave up the ship.)

stan/ec

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