CRUISING - EVENT REPORTS - 2002

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2002 Opening Day Parade

(The week that was) submitted by Martyn & Linda Adams

2002 Theme...Safari. Humm? Safari...jungle. Humm? Jungle...Vines...Snakes. An idea is born.

Let’s see, snake? BIG snake about 50 feet long, about ten inches of loose, mottled green skin. Twining up, around and through the mast; past the upper spreaders around the shrouds and down around the fore stay. Big head with yellow eyes and a red tongue. Oh yes, it has to move the head. We are starting to get into this.

Vines. Green twine and green and camouflage strips of fabric stapled to the twine. Each leaf is about 6" by 12-18". I’ll haul it to the top of the mast and string it to the sprit, stern and around each cap shroud. If any is left it will go around the lifelines...288 feet of vines.

Anything else? Birds...how about a two-foot by three-foot rigid toucan and a parrot the same size. Cool, I’ll attach them at the lower spreaders.

Let’s see, normal time to rig up and launch...about 45 minutes. Add the decorations...OK, I’ll sneak out about noon Friday and have it well in hand with plenty of light to discover what all the "log boom" stuff is about for Friday night.

"Do you remember you have a trade show on Friday?" Linda’s question four days before the parade throws a significant "wrench" into my plans. The snake is done and the two birds are mounted. Well, the snake’s body is done and the head...and I am sure they will go together somehow. Humm? Who’s idea was this? We could have done a quiet cruise to a secluded island, steaks, and cool wine. Instead the head won’t fit down the snake’s neck!

Trade show...need truck for show...need truck to move boat...show ends at 4:30 in south Tumwater...Yikes! I won’t be back to Seattle before 7. OK, Linda will bring the truck and boat down to Sandpoint and I will meet her there. I will cram all the show gear into the Supra and cut an hour off the trip back. Yea, we can do this. We have anchored at night before. Stupid show...stupid parade...

"Hello, Linda? The show is breaking up at 2:30 and I’ll meet you at home. Have little Sapphire (our volunteer crew kid from next door) ready and we will all go down together." Actually the rigging was pretty easy as was the launch. It is dark and the wind is 7-10 out of the southeast. We drop the hook in the bay east of Husky stadium and plow about 300 yards of weedy bottom. Doubled the scope and tried again and the anchor grabbed bottom. "Back down GENTLY", and Linda eased us backward. A quick look around and I deployed our second oversize Fortress anchor. I figured the snake and birds went to sleep. Not tonight!

0135 hours. My eyes snapped open and I lay there listening. Some little change in sound woke me and as I looked out I saw the shore about 60 feet away. Both anchors drug in the weedy bottom. Linda awoke instantly to my voice. We motored away retrieving the anchors and discovered what it is like to back into the log boom to secure a line and stern tie for the rest of the night. Never sail faster than your guardian angel can fly and NEVER back down easy to set an anchor, the first is for piece of mind and the second is called seamanship! Lesson learned.

0830 hours. All the vines are up and the boat has about the same windage as with the spinnaker up. We start the trip down the channel to the SYC staging area. We had decided we would either look cool or make total fools of ourselves. The friendly cheers and happy comments from all the moored boats allayed out fears. A long and a short blast gets the Montlake Bridge up and we chug into Portage Bay. Tigger (Scott McCulley - Tramp 20) had joined us and disappeared to pick up some crew (Marty Bryant). A short time later the Windrider 17 (Del Bates and David Vinson) joined us and finally Tigger returned as we all chatted and waited for our turn down the parade route.

Our number is called and we start down the Montlake Cut. Hey, this is kind of neat. Lots of happy faces and cheers. Out past the review boats and on down the lines of spectator boats. Lots of waves, cheers and applause. I find I have this big grin on my face because we helped make all this happen. A few minutes later we passed this 40 footer with the two young ladies on the bridge deck who cheered the snake and as I turned to wave, waved them back. I didn’t know a Windrider could move that quickly as David and Del went for a closer look...but that is another story.

2002 Opening Day Parade

(Part II) submitted by Scott McCulley

Opening Day conjures images of fluffy white clouds in an azure sky with a warm breeze marking the start of boating season. Well, maybe in some part of the world. In Seattle, it means that one cold wet weekend is as good as another to drag people out on the water for a great party!

I got off to an auspicious start when my crew read the weather forecast and decided that they would stay home. An appeal to the multihull listserver yielded one hearty soul (Marty Bryant). Never believe a Seattle weather forecast, it wasn’t that bad (if you like cold and windy). At least the rain held off.

Friday afternoon Tim informed us that "Earth Angel", a 44’ powerboat we were planning to spend the weekend on had come down with fatal electrical problems and could not leave the dock. Captain Ron came to the rescue with an extra berth on "Friendly Dolphin", a classic wooden powerboat. We launched on Friday from Stan Sayers Pits to spend the night at the log boom. [Just a note for Martyn, there is a nice mud bottom just to the East of the Arboretum in about 6 feet of water.]

Saturday morning dawned gray and windy.  Breakfast is ham and scrambled eggs.  I followed "Cuttlefish" into the Montlake Cut, then passed them under the bridge. I would like to propose a new race course, from the locks to the Montlake Bridge under sail. Being able to fit under all the bridges should overcome the handicap of being the slowest boat in the fleet... Passed the Windrider sailing on Lake Union with just a scrap of jib out in a strong breeze from the South.

Tigger’s decorations consisted of a palm tree taped to the mast and some nautical type flags. When picking up the NWMULTIHULL.ORG banners, we discovered that the pair were not together. Martyn had one and George the other. I picked up one on Thursday. George and Loretta dropped off the other one at the dock in South Lake Union when I was picking up Marty. [PHRF does not count banners as sail area, do they?]

We snuck past the guard boats to gain entrance to Portage Bay then swung by the two SSYC boats entered. Chad on his Grand Banks was doing the Commodore’s Salute. Larry on "Gone with the Wind" was doing his usual historical theme American Patriots on Safari at Sea. Which was just another excuse to use his vast collection of historical costumes and flags (good enough for Third Place!). Marty pulled out some killer sandwiches then pointed out that the car/boats were able to get around the South end of the barrier, so we went looking for the other multihulls and found them in the South end of Portage Bay across from SYC. Martyn gave up a few extra "jungle" bits so that Tigger could fly a few more decorations.

Cruising through the cut we saw Mark Olsoe and Diane Johnson cheering from the grandstand. The crowd was enthusiastic but much smaller and colder than two years ago. We missed the bikinis, I think we were about 5 or 6 boats behind them. After the parade we waved good-bye to the two other multihulls and sneaked back along the line of spectator boats to "Friendly Dolphin" for snacks and to warm up. A good day on the water!