Century Club: Tim Ford

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Thursday, January 5, 2023
Number of days:
1 day
Shoal Pole missing
  • post sundown lighting
  • controlled crash brings mast down (no video thank god)
  • Meet the new mark
  • nice day for something

Ostensible purpose was to get my rig down and also attend a club meeting.  But I had heard that Magothy River R "10" was missing in action.  I put in a kayak and went out to see for myself, and sure 'nuff, it is gone and there's a new floating mark there now.  I hope it's temporary, because the club has been going through the motions of getting federal permission to put a small weather station on the shoal pole. 

Otherwise it was a fantastic day to paddle.  Calm, warm and the lighting this time of year is just stellar.  Saw more Pintails than Buffleheads for a change.

Sunday, January 1, 2023
Number of days:
1 day
Hangover Bowl

PSA's Jan 1 hangover bowl - sailed completely in the creek in flukey and spotty breeze.  We saw way too many transoms but it was a blast and fantastic to get a sail in on Jan 1.

 

 

Thursday, December 29, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Last Day on the Water for 2022

FAIL. 

Won't make 100 days this year, too many things went wrong.  I figure I lost an anticipated 25 or 30 days due to:

- retiring from Newport - Bermuda Race - 10 days lost, as I was slated to do the delivery back, too

- no Classic Yacht Races in Maine - 5 days easily

- Cancelation of Rock Hall, Gov Cup and one other CBYRA race - 7 days

- Getting COVID for 10 days - lost a few days due to staying in isolation.

That would have brought me up to 98 days and I would've found an excuse to bump that up to 100.  In any case, the 73 days were great, I don't think there's one that was abject misery, maybe the first 18 hours of N2B as I was seasick as heck, and throw in a little hypothermia.  

Today's paddle was absolutely brilliant though!

Friday, December 2, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Dec 2 - a mission this time

We had a club member tie off a submerged line, I guess to a mooring?  Anyway, it should have been in last month's NOTMARs.  It had about 75 feeting of line just below the surface, and it was a wrapped prop waiting to happen.  So it was kayak time--to tow a larger red barge mark out and replace the grotty little lemonnade bottle. Mission done, but with cold fingers it wasn't the best example of marlinspike seamanship.  As the saying goes, "if you can't tie good knots, tie a lot of them!"

 

 

Thursday, December 1, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Dec 1 - brisk 2 hour paddle

Wind W at 10-12 gusting 24.  The mission was to find a sunny spot out of the breeze to eat lunch and have a beer.  No prob, plenty of scenic spots in the creek.

I definitely love this time of year! 

Buffleheads are back, too.

 

 

Saturday, November 26, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Leftovers
  • RC boat just to the north of the obstruction
  • obstruction on the course
  • A little compass calibration on the way to Annap

EYC Leftover Bowl is always a blast, depending on the weather of course.  Our's was fantastic and as soon as the race was over, I ducked below to shed all the stuff I had sweated through.  We took 3rd in Spinn.  EYC had some pretty wild "leftovers," including an AYC cup from 1974 and a NASS cup from 1972.  I forget who, from our boat, took these home. Topped off the day with a very easy nighttime delivery back to the Magothy in mercifully calm conditions. Just the apparent wind from motoring at 7 kn was chilly enough by 8pm, a few hours after sunset.

I remember once during a CBYRA Star Wars race, there was a very large vessel anchored just below the starting line at Severn River G “9” QC.  Same thing with this year's Leftover...someone parked this little 28 foot cabin cruiser just below the line (see photos)

 

 

Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Nov 22 low tide
  • tape and a yogurt cap solution
  • clear for the next 3 months
  • lunch spot

Went down to plug the hole in my boat, the one that's left when the CF prod is taken home for winter.  I had forgotten I'd left it open, in one of those "oh sh*t" 3 a.m. moments.  But man, was the tide low, and I love going out when the water clears up this time of year and the water is super-shallow.  You get to see where the deeper spots are and where the shoals have moved. 

At the dock, it was so shallow I could see off bottom off my stern and what looked one heckuva lot like an inspection port cap that I'd dropped in the water months ago.  So I felt around with a boat hook thinking I could lift it off the bottom and grab it.  Guess what looks EXACTLY like an overboard inspection port in 3 feet of water....hint: they have tentacles and they sting.  I think these are dead and sunken to the bottom. 

 

Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
cool and breezy weds
  • lunch spot
  • clearfulness
  • b/w grasses

Wanted to get my sails off the boat for the winter and decided to launch a kayak, too.  Turned on NOAA weather radio for local conditions and they said, Gooses Reef 37!  I said to myself, that's gotta be wrong, but sure enough, at 10:48 a.m., they did have breeze, NW 36.9 kn.

Whoa.

In any case, it wasn't blowing anything like that in the creek, and it wasn't too bad in the lee of all the trees and land masses surrounding the shore, so I stuck to that.  Nice day, really.  Sat in the lee of the point just south of PSA and ate lunch. It was quite pleasant and the water is so clear now.  I love this time of year.

 

 

Saturday, November 12, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Sat November12 - On the water?

Well, sort of.

I'll call it a "work day."  I did put in an hour on the boat but most of that was just bailing out a ton of rainwater. But it was a workday at the club, albeit an enjoyable one, getting preparations in place for our annual Oyster Party, part of which is a brief "Awards Ceremony" for our podium finishers of the two CBYRA-sanctioned races we host.

Only: we had just two qualifiers this year and one of them couldn't make it!  So the Awards Ceremony was mercifully short.

These are crystal picture frames from the firm in Medford Mass, PRIZE POSSESSIONS.  I looked back at the pix I took for our MoonLight Race and luckily had shots of both winners at the start of the race.  So this was a bit of a no-brainer. I think PRIZE PO does a nice job and I'd suggest to anyone else's club that these are a nice departure from a cup or a bowl.  And you can buy a shot of the winning racers, most of them anyway, from the Spinsheet Gallery.  WIN WIN for eveyone!

 

 

Sunday, November 6, 2022
Number of days:
1 day
Nov 6 - fish on & last MRSA sunday race
  • dead branch looks like a waterbird
  • hope it lived upon release
  • pursuit 1
  • lovely yawl headed upriver

Woke up at six a.m., which was really 7 on my biological clock.  Had 5 hours to kill, so grabbed a paddle and took a few casts with an ultra-light rod and a green paddletail on.  No dice until I was almost back to the club, and I got a big strike, which I missed and then a few seconds later, FISH-ON.   Nice 22 inch pickerel which, after a tussle, I released and hope the poor guy survived.  He was loggish but remained dorsal fin up at the surface for a few minutes. I did fish CPR on him and that revived him enough to finally submerge and sound.  Poor thing. 

Then the MRSA pursuit race on Inc.  Always a blast to sail with these folks and it's nice to have the rest of the fleet behind you as you approah the finish of a pursuti race. And it was actually hot downwind on November 6th!

 

 

 

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