Wind! Wind! Rain! Wind! BANG! Wind!

SHIP'S LOG:

I spent the night last night in a slip at TYC as the rain came down and the wind blew from the South-East.  Heck it has been doing that for a week, switching from North to South-East and back again. ABISHAG was tied up nicely, not too tight and not too loose, so that she rode in the center of the slip through the rise and fall of tides . . . . well, mostly anyway.

I have never heard a dockline part, that is snap, but I heard one last night, though I didn't know what it was. Sleeping on a boat in 'exciting weather" is something akin to sleeping inside a base drum. All of the sounds get amplified and one has to sort them all out so that one can tell what's "normal" and what's not.  Due to the overhang of the stern, the portion of the hull that rides above the waterline, waves that get uplifted and slap at it can sound like someone hitting the hull with a large hammer! The sound of the wind increases to shrieks ad loud moans and lines that aren't taught can slap the mast like drumbeats.  Once you figure out what's "normal," merely amplified sounds, you filter them out so you can sleep.  Sometime during the night there was a "bang" that woke me up. At first I wasn't sure what it was but then other hull slapping waves hit and so I figure that was than and went back to sleep.

It turned out that one of the spring lines gave up the ghost.  It was a secondary spring line, doubled up from the mid-ship cleat to the piling. One half of the double line was separated when I check it as I left the boat to perform my morning ablutions. The other half was still attached and doing its job, but the other have popped right at the eye that went through the cleat on the pier. True, it was old ( it came with the boat), but it was a 1/2 inch and when it let go you could really hear it.

O well, more new docklines go on the list of stuff to be bought.  Rather than buy already made-up docklines, I'll buy a large than appropriate anchor rode and cut it to size putting the loops in the ends myself. That will cost half of what the right number of docklines would cost. And saving some greeny-back dollars is always better than saving no greeny-back dollars at all.

Next Saturday, Columbus Day Weekend, I will be headed up the Connecticut River to Portland where ABISHAG will be hauled again. The Season is end and winter approaches. UGH!