Cal sailors' dinghies

[SailingChris]

It's haul-out time here in the north. My Cal 20 was scheduled for hauling on Sept. 19 so I partly de-rigged but the marina guy got Covid and now I'm on for Oct. 3. Sept. 19 was a nice sunny day and I am hoping Oct. 3 is pleasant as well.

Since the mainsail and boom are off, I decided to go out and check the mooring lines and clean the spark plugs on the outboard after work last night. Clean plugs will assure that I can get up to the haulout and mast-crane locations. The wind was from the east and I was headed east so it was a small workout. But the racing fleet was out for Wed. night--they've raced a lot longer this year than usual, likely because our climate has changed for the warmer so notably.

Maybe that's why the wind has been from the north all summer. I've never seen anything like it. We are in the land of prevailing westerlies but this summer it has been north most of the time.

There's one other raised-deck classic Cal in our mooring field, a 25 owned by a local sailmaker. He was out racing and his dinghy was on his mooring. That's when it dawned on me. The only two sailors who row their dinghies are we two. The two classic Cal sailors.

Chris Campbell
Traverse City, MI

[rcvesselstyn]

Maybe it is just our vintage, or perhaps it is cyclic. When we were younger, in the fifties and sixties, we rowed everywhere. I can tell you rowing a half mile out in Cat. harbor with a dinghy loaded with people, dogs, and supplies against a 15 knot breeze and wind chop was brutal. In the seventies and eighties we had a little 1.5 horse Evinrude. It mitigated that trip and allowed us to explore further afield when we were in new anchorages. Then with kids the stink of the fuel, the maintenance, and just rigging it up was more trouble than it was worth. So for the last thirty years or so we just row. For distances we have used the kayaks. Our knees have seen better days and jetting in and out of the kayaks has become challenging. At this point we are looking into a little electric trolling motor for distances. We both still love to row but I think we must make accommodations for our vintage.