The Wind She Blow

In the small hours of the morning, the wind arrived. Blowing at 15 to 25 nm/h, it moaned over us. Django echoed with the slap of waves. Fortunately, we were being pushed away from, not toward the dock. WW got up and checked our lines.

In the morning, we tuned into the cruisers’ net which gives weather, business news, regatta news, general news and, as another Canadian termed it “Treasures From the Bilge”. All the cruisers had survived the night but, the day before, a diver had drowned going to a place that exceeded his experience. It was sobering to hear about it.

All day the wind howled, with gusts up to 30 nm/h and “scattered showers”, which felt more to me like “unrelenting torrential downpours”. WW and I went in to mail some postcards, and to buy beer and ice. We grabbed hamburgers to go at Sam’s Place (right by the pier). The second we stepped out from under cover, we were completely drenched.

The remainder of the day was spent quietly, observing the weather, until evening when John came by looking for helpers…a Bayliner was smashing herself badly on one of the wharves; her owners had been forced to leave for a funeral and weren’t expected back for another six or seven hours. We offered to help, but the wind and tide were pushing at Django so forcefully that we couldn’t get ashore. John found Brian, and he and Brian helped us pull Django closer. About eight of us stood in the dark with an assortment of flashlights (WW and I had on our headlamps) and fought to keep the big boat from doing herself serious damage. As John said, “They’d do it for us.” We finally rigged a 2x4 board fender with four bumpers between it and the boat. We learned later that, when the owner finally returned, the board had snapped in two and the boat had taken substantial damage. However, he was deeply grateful and felt the damage could have been far worse.

A big Boston Whaler, sporting a long beard of algae all around its waterline and an 85 hp engine off its stern, had been tied up by the shoreline since before our arrival. She was capsized during the blow. No one seemed to care. But then, the algae indicated that.

That night, the winds continued and we heard Django’s lines creak and protest with every gust and wave. She had lines from her starboard forward, aft and midship cleats…just three points including bow and stern springs, bow line and stern line. Not really enough, and her lines seemed to look smaller and smaller as they fought the pressure. Next morning, we bought new, thicker lines. The big blow had yet to arrive.

That afternoon, I learned to splice, putting back splices and eye splices in some of our new lines. For those who don’t know, splicing is a way to have a line make a sturdy connection to itself or to another line. An eye splice results in a loop at one end of the line, a back splice results in a thickened end which is easier to grab and hold onto. WW ran lines from her forward centre and port cleats, and from her aft port cleat. Six points; much better. Then he winched us closer to the dock.

Splices by Moi

The cruisers’ weather god Chris Parker said it was going to be the strongest front in two years. It came through in the middle of Tuesday night, blowing 25 to 30 nm/h with gusts to 35 nm/h. Django danced a merry dance, but the dreadful noises from the lines were gone. Fortunately, it didn’t last as long as the other blows. In the morning, Django was fine.