Since not many people are buying Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack, my log books kept in verse form of several extended trips aboard a skipjack (sail-powered oyster dredge), I have decided to make it available for free on Scribd.com.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25945756/Slow-Motion-Scribd-com-Edition
"Slow Motion: The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack" by M. Kei is a break-through collection of waterman poetry from the Chesapeake Bay who actually knows what he is talking about. M. Kei crews on the title boat, the Skipjack Martha Lewis. Kirsty Karkow, prize-winning author of 'water poems' and 'shorelines' says: "A Skipjack is a historica vessel where form follows function with a rough beauty. These characteristics are apparent in the sensitive, poetic voyages of an aging boat and the men who work her sails. This history and trip log is sure to delight any sailor or lover of the Chesapeake Bay . . . and of poetry."
The trade paperback is for sale at: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/slow-motion-the-log-of-a-chesapeake-bay-skipjack/2905064
Showing posts with label skipjack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skipjack. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Update on Many Things
I have completed Men of Honor , the sequel to Pirates of the Narrow Seas , and posted it online at fictionpress.com. A few enthusiastic readers have read the first one, and I hope they will enjoy the second one, which I personally think is even better. Both novels can be read free online at: http://www.fictionpress.com/~mkei
Having been spending my creative energies on the novels (I think there is one more story in me about Lt. Peter Thorton and his adventures), I haven't written much poetry. Tanka requires relaxation to enter the contemplative state of mind necessary to write it, and there hasn't been much of that in the past year. My young adult children have come to live with me full time, my promotion at work has been full of stress thanks to a bad boss, and the crazy schedule I work at Wal-mart means I have rarely been able to take the solace of working the skipjack.
On the positive side, my health is the best its been in decades as I roll the cancer dice and beat the odds once again. My son, who is autistic, is working for his GED. And being able to write a novel is a signal achievement, since the ability to process language was a casualty of developing narcolepsy long ago. I cannot say I have overcome narcolepsy, but I have rebuilt my skills to the level that I can function in spite of it.
Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka is also consuming a great deal of my time. The nomination process is in its final days, after which we will need to make our final selections and I will need to contact the poets to request permission to reprint. A final date for the appearance of the anthology has not yet been selected, but it will be in the spring of 2009. I and my editorial team has read approximately fourteen thousand poems and has achieved our goal of reading all tanka published in English in 2008. We are grateful for those poets and editors who provided us with copies of their works.
Having been spending my creative energies on the novels (I think there is one more story in me about Lt. Peter Thorton and his adventures), I haven't written much poetry. Tanka requires relaxation to enter the contemplative state of mind necessary to write it, and there hasn't been much of that in the past year. My young adult children have come to live with me full time, my promotion at work has been full of stress thanks to a bad boss, and the crazy schedule I work at Wal-mart means I have rarely been able to take the solace of working the skipjack.
On the positive side, my health is the best its been in decades as I roll the cancer dice and beat the odds once again. My son, who is autistic, is working for his GED. And being able to write a novel is a signal achievement, since the ability to process language was a casualty of developing narcolepsy long ago. I cannot say I have overcome narcolepsy, but I have rebuilt my skills to the level that I can function in spite of it.
Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka is also consuming a great deal of my time. The nomination process is in its final days, after which we will need to make our final selections and I will need to contact the poets to request permission to reprint. A final date for the appearance of the anthology has not yet been selected, but it will be in the spring of 2009. I and my editorial team has read approximately fourteen thousand poems and has achieved our goal of reading all tanka published in English in 2008. We are grateful for those poets and editors who provided us with copies of their works.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Ever Expanding Obsession
As readers of this blog know by now, as do all my friends and relatives, there is nothing I like better than sailing wooden boats on the Chesapeake Bay. Yes, I even like it better than poetry, but don't ask me to choose between them! They can be accomplished simultaneously, one lived through the other.
Over the period of October 17 - 22 I once again crewed aboard the Martha Lewis, this time for a trip down the bay to the Crisfield Watermen's Festival. Crisfield is about as far south as you can go on the water and still be in Maryland. I also learned many new an interesting things, including how each and every one of us has a built in map of the Chesapeake Bay. To use it, raise your arm up straight, but put a slight crook in your elbow. The fingers tips are the head of the Bay with Havre de Grace. The elbow is an Annapolis. The armpit is Crisfield. Extending the anatomical metaphor, Norfolk is your rear end. Or to put it this way: If you were going to give the Chesapeake Bay an enema, Norfolk is where you would insert the nozzle. I'll spare you the rest of the watermen's humor I encountered.
Everywhere we go, we meet watermen who tell us about the time they served with Martha or some other skipjack. I have noticed a common thread. Speaking as they do in the common language, intent only on talking about things that matter to them, watermen are developing a peculiar figure of speech. More than once I have heard an older waterman describe himself as working on the Bay "back when winters were cold." Global warming may be a subject of debate to people who lived in climate controlled boxes in cities, but for the people who live and work the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, it is a manifest fact.
When I tell young people that a hundred years ago the Upper Bay used to freeze over and that ice cut from it was Maryland's second largest export, they are astonished. Their grandparents then chime in to tell about how when they were young and the Bay would freeze over, they would walk across the ice from one side to the other. More astonishment. When I ask them when that was, they say the 1950s. Indeed, as late as the 1950s, skipjacks were sometimes caught in the ice and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. Wooden boats are no defense against the slow grinding crush of winter.
But while Crisfield was interesting for many reasons, that which most attracted my attention (aside from a few brief but exciting moments when my glove was pinned against the samson post and the skipjack was swinging out of control at Tilghmans Island), was the three log sailing canoe, Ruby. She belongs to Randy George who lives on Galen's Creek, or as it used to be known and still is known to oldtimers, Red Cap Creek. He kindly invited us to go out on it with him, and three of us accepted.
the magic trick
of dawn:
a slim white sailboat
materializes
from the mist
Arriving at night, the creek and sailboat were invisible. But as dawn rose, the slim white lines of the sailboat emerged from the mist. What a beautiful sight to behold! About thirty feet long, including her Roman-nosed bowsprit, and about six feet wide, she sported a single mast with a skipjack rig. She was built in 1895 and is an example of the working type of log sailing canoe. She had been used for oystering.
The log sailing canoe was evolved by the colonists from the Native American dugout canoe. In the case of the Ruby, three logs were affixed side by side and hollowed out with axe and adze to make the hull. Then her sides and coamings affixed and the whole lot rigged as it pleases. The result is an extremely shallow, narrow, and quick sailboat, so much so that they survive today in the sport of log canoe racing, which is unique to the Chesapeake Bay. The modern log canoe with its trapezoidal sails and hiking boards is a strange and unmistakeable sight. There aren't many of them left, and even fewer that are still rigged as workboats. The oldest canoes in the racing fleet are over a hundred years old.
The Ruby then was a sweet little boat and when I saw it I think I must have felt much as Mole felt when he first saw the Water Rat's little boat, and for much the same reason. As Kenneth Graham said in The Wind in the Willows , "There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
my hand on the tiller
like Water Rat and Mole
with no particular place to go
and no particular desire
to get there any time soon
Randy very kindly let us each have a turned at the tiller, so we sailed down Red Cap Creek to the Big Annemessex River. The marshes were all brown and sere, quite, and with few insects about. The waters were placid and a light breeze blew. The curves of the waters wended through the stands of tall marsh grass, and the higher ground ('high' is a relative term) with its trees and houses fell away. The sky overhead was the purest blue, fading into silver at the horizons.
How my heart went out to it! A skipjack is and always will be beyond my means, but wouldn't it be possible to some day perhaps have myself a log sailing canoe? It's not so very large, and the skills -- knocking out the rotten wood and replacing the Bondo and other makeshift repairs with something more solid -- requires no great skill. Mast hoops made of rope and a sail that I could probably stitch myself . . . why not?
Ah. The real difficulty is not with the boat but the shore. Where to keep it? It won't fit in the living room. Where to store it where it could live safely while I puttered with it for as long as it took my meager funds to slowly patch it back together and return it to the water? I'd live in a shack if it had a bit of creek for a boat. I have, at times in my life, been gifted with chocolate, plane tickets, medication, and old clothes, but never with a waterfront home.
Alas. Such is not be. I've got a job working at Walmart, running my legs off so that people who make as little as I do can have their DVDs and gaming consoles. How they spend, spend, spend on HDTV, the latest pop album, and gadgets for their gadgets. It feels a little strange to be selling people things I have no use for, and if they had any sense, they wouldn't have any use for them either. Once upon a time, little boys messed about in old wooden rowboats and explored the riverbanks and marshes. Nowadays their parents keep them away from those dangerous places and give them better entertainment, like 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'Hitman.'
~K~
Over the period of October 17 - 22 I once again crewed aboard the Martha Lewis, this time for a trip down the bay to the Crisfield Watermen's Festival. Crisfield is about as far south as you can go on the water and still be in Maryland. I also learned many new an interesting things, including how each and every one of us has a built in map of the Chesapeake Bay. To use it, raise your arm up straight, but put a slight crook in your elbow. The fingers tips are the head of the Bay with Havre de Grace. The elbow is an Annapolis. The armpit is Crisfield. Extending the anatomical metaphor, Norfolk is your rear end. Or to put it this way: If you were going to give the Chesapeake Bay an enema, Norfolk is where you would insert the nozzle. I'll spare you the rest of the watermen's humor I encountered.
Everywhere we go, we meet watermen who tell us about the time they served with Martha or some other skipjack. I have noticed a common thread. Speaking as they do in the common language, intent only on talking about things that matter to them, watermen are developing a peculiar figure of speech. More than once I have heard an older waterman describe himself as working on the Bay "back when winters were cold." Global warming may be a subject of debate to people who lived in climate controlled boxes in cities, but for the people who live and work the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, it is a manifest fact.
When I tell young people that a hundred years ago the Upper Bay used to freeze over and that ice cut from it was Maryland's second largest export, they are astonished. Their grandparents then chime in to tell about how when they were young and the Bay would freeze over, they would walk across the ice from one side to the other. More astonishment. When I ask them when that was, they say the 1950s. Indeed, as late as the 1950s, skipjacks were sometimes caught in the ice and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. Wooden boats are no defense against the slow grinding crush of winter.
But while Crisfield was interesting for many reasons, that which most attracted my attention (aside from a few brief but exciting moments when my glove was pinned against the samson post and the skipjack was swinging out of control at Tilghmans Island), was the three log sailing canoe, Ruby. She belongs to Randy George who lives on Galen's Creek, or as it used to be known and still is known to oldtimers, Red Cap Creek. He kindly invited us to go out on it with him, and three of us accepted.
the magic trick
of dawn:
a slim white sailboat
materializes
from the mist
Arriving at night, the creek and sailboat were invisible. But as dawn rose, the slim white lines of the sailboat emerged from the mist. What a beautiful sight to behold! About thirty feet long, including her Roman-nosed bowsprit, and about six feet wide, she sported a single mast with a skipjack rig. She was built in 1895 and is an example of the working type of log sailing canoe. She had been used for oystering.
The log sailing canoe was evolved by the colonists from the Native American dugout canoe. In the case of the Ruby, three logs were affixed side by side and hollowed out with axe and adze to make the hull. Then her sides and coamings affixed and the whole lot rigged as it pleases. The result is an extremely shallow, narrow, and quick sailboat, so much so that they survive today in the sport of log canoe racing, which is unique to the Chesapeake Bay. The modern log canoe with its trapezoidal sails and hiking boards is a strange and unmistakeable sight. There aren't many of them left, and even fewer that are still rigged as workboats. The oldest canoes in the racing fleet are over a hundred years old.
The Ruby then was a sweet little boat and when I saw it I think I must have felt much as Mole felt when he first saw the Water Rat's little boat, and for much the same reason. As Kenneth Graham said in The Wind in the Willows , "There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
my hand on the tiller
like Water Rat and Mole
with no particular place to go
and no particular desire
to get there any time soon
Randy very kindly let us each have a turned at the tiller, so we sailed down Red Cap Creek to the Big Annemessex River. The marshes were all brown and sere, quite, and with few insects about. The waters were placid and a light breeze blew. The curves of the waters wended through the stands of tall marsh grass, and the higher ground ('high' is a relative term) with its trees and houses fell away. The sky overhead was the purest blue, fading into silver at the horizons.
How my heart went out to it! A skipjack is and always will be beyond my means, but wouldn't it be possible to some day perhaps have myself a log sailing canoe? It's not so very large, and the skills -- knocking out the rotten wood and replacing the Bondo and other makeshift repairs with something more solid -- requires no great skill. Mast hoops made of rope and a sail that I could probably stitch myself . . . why not?
Ah. The real difficulty is not with the boat but the shore. Where to keep it? It won't fit in the living room. Where to store it where it could live safely while I puttered with it for as long as it took my meager funds to slowly patch it back together and return it to the water? I'd live in a shack if it had a bit of creek for a boat. I have, at times in my life, been gifted with chocolate, plane tickets, medication, and old clothes, but never with a waterfront home.
Alas. Such is not be. I've got a job working at Walmart, running my legs off so that people who make as little as I do can have their DVDs and gaming consoles. How they spend, spend, spend on HDTV, the latest pop album, and gadgets for their gadgets. It feels a little strange to be selling people things I have no use for, and if they had any sense, they wouldn't have any use for them either. Once upon a time, little boys messed about in old wooden rowboats and explored the riverbanks and marshes. Nowadays their parents keep them away from those dangerous places and give them better entertainment, like 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'Hitman.'
~K~
Monday, October 01, 2007
7 Wonders of the Chesapeake Bay
I love the Chesapeake Bay and I believe it is best seen from the water. I have seen sites of spectacular beauty along its shores, especially from the deck of the Skipjack Martha Lewis. Several sites impress me with their beauty and so it has occurred to me to develop a list of the 'Seven Wonders of the Chesapeake Bay." Much to my surprise, apparently no one has done such a thing.
My list is barely begun, but I offer the following candidates:
1) The view from Turkey Point. This is an absolutely breathtaking panorama which allows a person to see more than thirty miles to Poole Island. From water level, the island is only a barely visible dark smudge, but from atop the 100 foot bluffs, the island is a broad expanses. Add to this the Turkey Point Lighthouse, built 1833, and the hawks and other migratory birds that use Turkey Point as a launching point to cross the bay, and you've got my number one pick.
2) Sharp's Island Light. The famous Leaning Lighthouse of the Chesapeake. It was nudged over by heavy ice in 1970. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is more famous, but why? Sharp's Light was built in 1882 on what was then Sharp's Island. This is one of several islands of the Chesapeake that has completely eroded away, becoming a set of shoals that require the light for warning. There are very few places in the world where a historic structure is still standing when the land under is has disappeared. Sharp's Light is our very own Atlantis.
3) The Calvert Cliffs. They line the Western Shore for more than thirty miles, a stretch with no harbor, making them a peril to mariners when storms blow out of the east. More than one ship has been sunk here. In addition, the cliffs have yielded more than 600 species of fossils. Because they are constantly eroding, they are constantly revealing new fossils. Crocodile teeth, anyone? Prehistoric crocs from the Miocene period lived here when the Cliffs were at the bottom of a shallow sea. The Cliffs are also the highest shoreline along the Chesapeake Bay.
4) The Skipjack Fleet. Listed on the National Register in 1985 and listed in 2002 as one of the eleven most endangered historic places in America by the National Historic Trust, these beautiful hard working vessels and the people who keep them afloat are truly a wonder. Official boat of Maryland, the number that are still dredging could be counted on one hand by a man who has lost a few fingers.
These four seem to me shoo-ins for Wonders of the Chesapeake Bay. I am undecided about the rest of the Wonders. I prefer natural wonders, but there is Sharp Island Light and the skipjacks... If we are to include man made wonders, then the C&D Canal, dug by hand with dirt hauled in baskets by mules is a prime candidate, and so is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Yet I admit to having a bias against the Bay Bridge. Maybe it's simply too new for my historical taste.
As for other candidates... Tangier Sound offers possibilities. And I admit to a great fondness for the little town of Wingate. It's a tiny place composed of two churches and seventeen crabboats where people are in bed by 9 at nine because they get up at 3 in the morning to go to work crabbing or in picking crabs in the crabhouses, and the docks are missing most of their boards. But the view of skipjacks heading out in the morning mists is something never to be forgotten.
~K~
My list is barely begun, but I offer the following candidates:
1) The view from Turkey Point. This is an absolutely breathtaking panorama which allows a person to see more than thirty miles to Poole Island. From water level, the island is only a barely visible dark smudge, but from atop the 100 foot bluffs, the island is a broad expanses. Add to this the Turkey Point Lighthouse, built 1833, and the hawks and other migratory birds that use Turkey Point as a launching point to cross the bay, and you've got my number one pick.
2) Sharp's Island Light. The famous Leaning Lighthouse of the Chesapeake. It was nudged over by heavy ice in 1970. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is more famous, but why? Sharp's Light was built in 1882 on what was then Sharp's Island. This is one of several islands of the Chesapeake that has completely eroded away, becoming a set of shoals that require the light for warning. There are very few places in the world where a historic structure is still standing when the land under is has disappeared. Sharp's Light is our very own Atlantis.
3) The Calvert Cliffs. They line the Western Shore for more than thirty miles, a stretch with no harbor, making them a peril to mariners when storms blow out of the east. More than one ship has been sunk here. In addition, the cliffs have yielded more than 600 species of fossils. Because they are constantly eroding, they are constantly revealing new fossils. Crocodile teeth, anyone? Prehistoric crocs from the Miocene period lived here when the Cliffs were at the bottom of a shallow sea. The Cliffs are also the highest shoreline along the Chesapeake Bay.
4) The Skipjack Fleet. Listed on the National Register in 1985 and listed in 2002 as one of the eleven most endangered historic places in America by the National Historic Trust, these beautiful hard working vessels and the people who keep them afloat are truly a wonder. Official boat of Maryland, the number that are still dredging could be counted on one hand by a man who has lost a few fingers.
These four seem to me shoo-ins for Wonders of the Chesapeake Bay. I am undecided about the rest of the Wonders. I prefer natural wonders, but there is Sharp Island Light and the skipjacks... If we are to include man made wonders, then the C&D Canal, dug by hand with dirt hauled in baskets by mules is a prime candidate, and so is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Yet I admit to having a bias against the Bay Bridge. Maybe it's simply too new for my historical taste.
As for other candidates... Tangier Sound offers possibilities. And I admit to a great fondness for the little town of Wingate. It's a tiny place composed of two churches and seventeen crabboats where people are in bed by 9 at nine because they get up at 3 in the morning to go to work crabbing or in picking crabs in the crabhouses, and the docks are missing most of their boards. But the view of skipjacks heading out in the morning mists is something never to be forgotten.
~K~
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Autumn Water
I will have my first solo exhibit of poetry at the 3Lights Gallery from October - December of this year. Entitled 'Autumn Water,' the title is the theme. Included with the poetry are photographs from the Skipjack Martha Lewis. The exhibit isn't done yet and won't be ready for a public unveiling until October 1, but what I've seen so far is absolutely beautiful. I really love the way curator Liam Wilkinson is making my vision come together in a gorgeous exhibit.
The 3Lights Gallery is set up to present haiku and tanka as if they were art, and so the visitor tours a virtual gallery to study the poetry, much the way one contemplates art objects in a gallery. The presentation is effective, and more visceral than the usual literary journal presentation. Utilizing the web to include color and image really enhances the experience in a way that cannot be done in a purely textual medium.
Art and haiku and tanka have been combined before in the form known as haiga, but this 'art gallery' conceit is different. In haiga a single image and single poem are combined in a gestalt, but with the gallery concept, the photographs are important works of art in themselves. They complement but are not subsumed in the poetry. The intergration is not as tight, space is left between image and poem for the reader to breathe and think. The combination really works and I can't wait to see the finished product!
~K~
The 3Lights Gallery is set up to present haiku and tanka as if they were art, and so the visitor tours a virtual gallery to study the poetry, much the way one contemplates art objects in a gallery. The presentation is effective, and more visceral than the usual literary journal presentation. Utilizing the web to include color and image really enhances the experience in a way that cannot be done in a purely textual medium.
Art and haiku and tanka have been combined before in the form known as haiga, but this 'art gallery' conceit is different. In haiga a single image and single poem are combined in a gestalt, but with the gallery concept, the photographs are important works of art in themselves. They complement but are not subsumed in the poetry. The intergration is not as tight, space is left between image and poem for the reader to breathe and think. The combination really works and I can't wait to see the finished product!
~K~
Grapes and Hawkwatch
Today I helped load 4000 pounds of grapes on the Martha Lewis. She was transporting grapes from the local Mount Felix vinyard to the St. Michael's Winery on the Eastern Shore. In the warm months when skipjacks couldn't oyster, their captains shipped whatever they could get, typically produce and lumber. Skipjacks were just like semi-truck owners today -- whatever load they could get that would pay, they would take. Back before the Bay Bridge and the excellent highway system, it was cheaper, easier, and faster to move freight by boat.
It happened that the Mount Felix winery has its first harvest this year. They sold them to the winery, and the winery owner stipulated that they be shipped by boat, was traditional. The Martha Lewis was going that way to the Cambridge skipjack races this weekend, so a deal was struck. Martha will deliver the cargo on her way down.
There are only three skipjack races and they're popular with the volunteers, so I couldn't go this trip since I went to the Deal Island skipjack races over Labor Day.
watching the boat
sail away without me,
somebody else
going to adventure
this autumn morning
After Martha sailed away I reminded people on the dock, "Don't watch her out of sight. If you do, they won't come back." It's an old Irish superstition handed down in my family.
I drove to the other side and joined a friend and fellow crew member for the Hawkwatch on Turkey Point at Elk Neck State Park. We didn't see very many birds, but did spot a couple of vultures, an osprey, and a sharp-shinned hawk. She helped me identify some other birds. Leaving Elk Neck, a kestrel was sitting on a powerline crossing the road, counting cars I presume.
We hiked an alternate route back and found a pocket beach with plenty of clamshells and sea wrack washed up on it. It was paved almost as much with shell as with sand and pebbles. I wrote poetry and she took photographs. It was a rather long hike back to the carpark :)
~K~
It happened that the Mount Felix winery has its first harvest this year. They sold them to the winery, and the winery owner stipulated that they be shipped by boat, was traditional. The Martha Lewis was going that way to the Cambridge skipjack races this weekend, so a deal was struck. Martha will deliver the cargo on her way down.
There are only three skipjack races and they're popular with the volunteers, so I couldn't go this trip since I went to the Deal Island skipjack races over Labor Day.
watching the boat
sail away without me,
somebody else
going to adventure
this autumn morning
After Martha sailed away I reminded people on the dock, "Don't watch her out of sight. If you do, they won't come back." It's an old Irish superstition handed down in my family.
I drove to the other side and joined a friend and fellow crew member for the Hawkwatch on Turkey Point at Elk Neck State Park. We didn't see very many birds, but did spot a couple of vultures, an osprey, and a sharp-shinned hawk. She helped me identify some other birds. Leaving Elk Neck, a kestrel was sitting on a powerline crossing the road, counting cars I presume.
We hiked an alternate route back and found a pocket beach with plenty of clamshells and sea wrack washed up on it. It was paved almost as much with shell as with sand and pebbles. I wrote poetry and she took photographs. It was a rather long hike back to the carpark :)
~K~
Thursday, September 06, 2007
2nd Place for Skipjack Martha Lewis
As regular readers of my blog know, I have a bigger obsession than tanka poetry, and that is the Chesapeake Bay, and skipjacks in particular. Over Labor Day(s), I spent five days crewing aboard Martha as she took two days to get down the Bay to Deal Island (I wonder if the name was originally 'Ordeal'), one day to race, and one day back. I did get showers which made life bearable because it was sunny and hot on shore. On the Bay it was sunny and very pleasant, and I have intensified my tan with only minor sunburn to report.
Martha took second, outsailed by the spry Captain Art on the City of Crisfield, who at 86 is the last of the old time skipjack captains. He still drudges, too. Art is a Deal Islander and knows his waters, and he's been winning skipjack races since before our captain was born. It was a duel up until the final stretch. We made the first mark but he cut inside us and got ahead, then we caught up to him. We parted ways when he ran up the bay and we took our turn for the next mark early, way ahead of everybody else.
Turned out we turned too early and had to tack back to make the second mark, thereby losing ground that we had gained. City of Crisfield was waaaaay out there, and came screaming into the next mark on a broad reach - her best point of sail. Captain Art trusted his boat's ability to reach to give him the speed he needed in spite of us taking a shorter course, and he was right. We crossed her bow and tried to steal her wind, but he pulled away from us. He was just ahead of us going around the last mark, and then the wind died.
He got the City of Crisfield wung out, and though we tried, we couldn't get Martha to run wing and wing. Skipjacks are hard to wing out because of their club-footed jibs. Only one other skipjack got her sails wung out, which I do believe was the Rebecca Ruark. She'd had a block break earlier that cost her time and she wound up coming in fifth. There were three skipjack's fighting it out for third and a piece of the money. But as it was, the wind went nearly dead and we dawdled toward the finish line. City of Crisfield sails well in light airs, and we couldn't catch her, although we tried. We came in a quarter of a mile behind her (7 mile course). It took about an hour and a half.
Looking back, a flock of skipjacks was rounding the mark behind is, crossing each other and coming about, fighting it out for third. The fight was among Rebecca Ruark, Thomas Clyde, H. M. Krentz, and Fannie Daughtery. The third place spot went to Fannie Daugherty.
Finals were:
1st City of Crisfield
2nd Martha Lewis
3rd Fannie Daugherty
4th H. M. Krentz
5th Rebecca T. Ruark
6th Thomas Clyde
7th Helen Virginia
8th Somerset
9th Wilma Lee
Martha took second, outsailed by the spry Captain Art on the City of Crisfield, who at 86 is the last of the old time skipjack captains. He still drudges, too. Art is a Deal Islander and knows his waters, and he's been winning skipjack races since before our captain was born. It was a duel up until the final stretch. We made the first mark but he cut inside us and got ahead, then we caught up to him. We parted ways when he ran up the bay and we took our turn for the next mark early, way ahead of everybody else.
Turned out we turned too early and had to tack back to make the second mark, thereby losing ground that we had gained. City of Crisfield was waaaaay out there, and came screaming into the next mark on a broad reach - her best point of sail. Captain Art trusted his boat's ability to reach to give him the speed he needed in spite of us taking a shorter course, and he was right. We crossed her bow and tried to steal her wind, but he pulled away from us. He was just ahead of us going around the last mark, and then the wind died.
He got the City of Crisfield wung out, and though we tried, we couldn't get Martha to run wing and wing. Skipjacks are hard to wing out because of their club-footed jibs. Only one other skipjack got her sails wung out, which I do believe was the Rebecca Ruark. She'd had a block break earlier that cost her time and she wound up coming in fifth. There were three skipjack's fighting it out for third and a piece of the money. But as it was, the wind went nearly dead and we dawdled toward the finish line. City of Crisfield sails well in light airs, and we couldn't catch her, although we tried. We came in a quarter of a mile behind her (7 mile course). It took about an hour and a half.
Looking back, a flock of skipjacks was rounding the mark behind is, crossing each other and coming about, fighting it out for third. The fight was among Rebecca Ruark, Thomas Clyde, H. M. Krentz, and Fannie Daughtery. The third place spot went to Fannie Daugherty.
Finals were:
1st City of Crisfield
2nd Martha Lewis
3rd Fannie Daugherty
4th H. M. Krentz
5th Rebecca T. Ruark
6th Thomas Clyde
7th Helen Virginia
8th Somerset
9th Wilma Lee
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Deal Island Skipjack Races
Today, in about half an hour, I leave to spend five days without showering while crewing aboard the Skipjack Martha Lewis for the Deal Island Skipjack Races! Two days down, one day to race, two days back. If we get lucky, some kind soul will offer us showers along the way. If we get lucky, a fancy schmancy place in Annapolis will let us overnight with them, if not, we'll be docking in Dogwood Cove on Tilghman's Island. Personally, I'd rather dock at Dogwood Cove -- a skipjack belongs there. The rest of the crew is agitating for options with facilities, though :)
To learn more about the skipjack Martha Lewis, visit her website at: SkipjackMarthaLewis.org.
To learn more about the skipjack Martha Lewis, visit her website at: SkipjackMarthaLewis.org.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Visiting the Wooden Woman
Today I did laundry then headed down to Baltimore to visit the wooden woman, aka the Skipjack Martha Lewis. I haven't been to see the old lady since I broke my hand in January, but last Thursday my evaluation showed my grip strength in the broken hand is up to 30 lbs -- a definite improvement over the 12 lbs or so when I started therapy. Captain Greg gave me some easy work: scraping paint from Martha's forward starboard bottom. I am getting to know that portion of the boat's anatomy rather well; I was ripping planks out of it at Christmas, leading to the following poems:
a new year
and new planks
for an old skipjack;
if only the seasons of boats
were as certain as the calendar
winter work
long scratches on
my forearm parallel
the torn planks
of the old wooden boat
Both previously published on the Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society website.
Plus a number of other poems, but they've been sent to Landfall and Streetlights and are awaiting responses.
Martha's starboard bottom was my initial introduction to her a couple of years ago, under Capt. Bysshe. She was hauled out down at Georgetown and I caulked most of her starboard bottom. I'm starting to feel a sense of ownership for that portion of the boat . . .
Today was nice because among various small jobs, I went aloft for the first time. First ride in a bosun's chair, first time 68 feet above ground, and me with acrophobia. I've been wanting to go aloft for a while, but never had the chance. I've hauled the line to raise the captain and mate for maintenance, but having the broken hand I didn't feel qualified to haul Capt. Greg up so he hauled me up instead.
My acrophobia used to be quite horrible, but I've noticed some things about it. 1) How bad it is is related to my stress level. 2) I've been deliberately confronting it to get over it, and I enjoy challenging myself to do things I couldn't have done in the past. Like dangle from a line 68 feet in the air... 3) Plus, Ritalin has the nifty side effect of dramatically reducing phobias. I discovered that by accident. I don't know why Ritalin has such an evil reputation, all the side effects I've experienced with it have be lovely.
Anyhow, I went up and inspected the mast top and enjoyed the view. Martha's mast is 65 feet, but since she's hauled out of the water, add another ten feet to that. I went as high as the hounds, which is about five or six feet below the mastcap. I'll be going back next Saturday to sand and a varnish the masttop and epoxy to death the splinters in the masttop under the mastcap. That should be about an hour and a half of work the captain thinks.
a new year
and new planks
for an old skipjack;
if only the seasons of boats
were as certain as the calendar
winter work
long scratches on
my forearm parallel
the torn planks
of the old wooden boat
Both previously published on the Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society website.
Plus a number of other poems, but they've been sent to Landfall and Streetlights and are awaiting responses.
Martha's starboard bottom was my initial introduction to her a couple of years ago, under Capt. Bysshe. She was hauled out down at Georgetown and I caulked most of her starboard bottom. I'm starting to feel a sense of ownership for that portion of the boat . . .
Today was nice because among various small jobs, I went aloft for the first time. First ride in a bosun's chair, first time 68 feet above ground, and me with acrophobia. I've been wanting to go aloft for a while, but never had the chance. I've hauled the line to raise the captain and mate for maintenance, but having the broken hand I didn't feel qualified to haul Capt. Greg up so he hauled me up instead.
My acrophobia used to be quite horrible, but I've noticed some things about it. 1) How bad it is is related to my stress level. 2) I've been deliberately confronting it to get over it, and I enjoy challenging myself to do things I couldn't have done in the past. Like dangle from a line 68 feet in the air... 3) Plus, Ritalin has the nifty side effect of dramatically reducing phobias. I discovered that by accident. I don't know why Ritalin has such an evil reputation, all the side effects I've experienced with it have be lovely.
Anyhow, I went up and inspected the mast top and enjoyed the view. Martha's mast is 65 feet, but since she's hauled out of the water, add another ten feet to that. I went as high as the hounds, which is about five or six feet below the mastcap. I'll be going back next Saturday to sand and a varnish the masttop and epoxy to death the splinters in the masttop under the mastcap. That should be about an hour and a half of work the captain thinks.
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