Both falls have been vertical, and relatively low impact. That seems to the pattern here. When I start to see I’m going over, and all is lost, I assume an upright position, feet down, like one of your less impressive Acapulco cliff divers.
To be fair, they are diving from hundreds of feet, and in my case the drop was short, 3 to 5 feet. But I make up in variety where I am lacking in altitude. The first unplanned leap was off of a high sawhorse, whilst I was untying Sea Nymph’s fold-down ladder, in the shipyard parking lot area.
When you untie something being acted upon by gravity, that thing will drop, or in this case, the fold up ladder will unfold. To my credit, I instinctively realized that an unfolding ladder is really not worth holding on to, and the safest thing is to execute a little horizontal hop in the backwards direction and then assume standard upright plunge posture, and don’t forget to bend your knees on impact. Like I say, only about 4 or 5 feet up, but I stuck the landing.
I am 72 years old. I feel my life is now compressed into a very short time, and the sheer wonder of it is something to behold. I may be alive at 75 or 80, but I won’t be executing cliff jumper maneuvers.
I have buried the lead. Sea Nymph got launched yesterday, and now lies at the dock right next to the travel lift that laid her down so gently:
My second leap was performed at the dock owned by the Sail, Power, and Steam Museum (SPSM). I was just wrapping up a great conversation with a fellow who was helping out in the restoration of an old Windjammer, which in my mind, I called the S.S. Hopeless. (Her real name is the Mercantile. )
She is 100 year’s old, but has good white oak bones. Jeff, who hails from upta the Eggemoggin Reach area, first learned about shipbuilding from his grandfather, when he was but a lad of seven. Subsequent years have been spotty, in terms of shipbuilding experience. In this respect he reminds me of me, when people ask me if I have experience with this sailing project I am embarked on. Well, a highlight of my resume is that I used to race Bluejays on Long Island Sound when I was in about the 5th grade. Since then, I’ll admit, it’s been a bit catch-as-catch-can.
But this misses the point. In the case of Jeff, and in the case of me, he, with his grandfather, and me, with my father, the heavens were made to open up for us, and we received that initial push, that somehow exists outside of time, but yet, to be most effective, must be administered early in a young life. That’s all it takes, really, plus some trial and error.
So Jeff’s daunting project is to assist in bringing the S.S. Hopeless back to life. Known problems, in addition to some dry rot, are a couple of broken deck beams, and a pine deck that needs to be totally replaced. But lest detractors take one look at the S.S. Hopeless and write her off, Jeff informs me that her bilges are dry, and she doesn’t leak a drop.
That’s more than I can say for my infernal Zodiac, which has a persistent leak of some magnitude. In fact, that’s what brought me down to the dock: I was there for the daily pumping out. I got waylaid by my conversation with Jeff, where I had mounted a short platform, in order to best peer over the gunwales to see the lay of the Hopeless. After we talked for about 10 minutes, which is really the absolute minimum Maine conversation, I told Jeff to keep the faith, and I began to make my exit.
Maybe my rule should be “Don’t step backwards, especially on a diving platform”. Prior to my impromptu maneuver, I hadn’t really thought of this as a diving platform, per se, but more just an area of the dock that was raised a couple of feet. I should have mentioned that in general, the Sail, Power, and Steam Museum is a bit ramshackle, so of course, these are the kinds of makeshift, nailed together docks that can contain surprises.
Again, I had those precious moments when I needed to surrender to the inevitable, and I started to topple like a felled redwood. I could actually touch the wharf pilings across a narrow gulf of water, but not so much that there was anything to hold on to, and besides, a wet piling is a very slippery affair, smooth though, and I’m glad for that, because one thing I really hate is abrasions and splinters.
My Acapulco instincts kicked in and I assume the vertical. I really wasn’t in that five feet of murky water long at all, so as far as the phone in my zipped up fleece pocket was concerned, I think we can safely apply a variant of the 5 second rule.
That water was some dirty. The showers for Sail, Power, and Steam, were really quite close, so after some quick goodbyes to Jeff, I was in that shower area lickety split. There I wrung out my clothes, and the water even from my socks was almost black.
None of this is really what I wanted to talk about here, which is Captain Rick, but off he goes to the next post. In this business, you need to stay flexible. It’s off to Walgreens for some Tylenol for my lower back, but otherwise, I’m good.
Glad to hear you survived both falls, hopefully your phone did as well! It’s all an adventure, right?
Oh my goodness! Glad you survived the falls. I finally got around to subscribing to substrack