The waiting game

It's a rainy late September, and I'm slated to sail all day. In looking at the sky and the rain coming down, I'm doubting we sold any tickets, but its the kind of rain that looks like its going to clear up. Eventually.

Charlie calls me at 1130 hrs to ask a favor. He doesn't have the number to the visitor's service desk, and asks if I can walk over there to see what the ticket situation is for the rest of the day. He sounds ready to cancel the whole day. I'm to call him at 1200 hrs.

I walk over to the Museum. The conversation goes something like this:

"How many tickets have we sold for today's sails?"

"None for the 1-3. 18 for the 4-6. 2 for the 7-9."

"18? Are those actual tickets are reservations?"

"Reservation. 18 tickets for one person."

I groan. Damned ghetto charter. If it weren't for that group, we could cancel the whole day. We don't even know if they'll show up. I call Charlie and he officially cancels the 1-3 sail, and says he'll call reservations around 3 to see what's going on with the group. If it's still spitting rain like this, I doubt they'll want to go out.

So the waiting starts. On days like this, what I'd rather be doing is watching the Mad Men marathon (I can at least watch part of that, on right now is the "I'm Peggy Olsen, and I want to smoke pot" episode) or True Blood on HBO Demand. Or knit. Or finish that lanyard. Or a combination of those. A museum show would be great also - free access with my Smithsonian ID card (the Cooper-Hewitt project is at least good for that).

What I'd really like to do is go to a restorative yoga class at 1730 hrs. Unless both the 4-6 and the 7-9 are canceled, that can't happen today either.

I'm not saying I'd rather be doing all these things instead of sailing. I'd love it if there were three sure-to-go-out sails today. We're at the end of the season, so the opportunities are waning to go out on Pioneer. What I don't like is not being able to plan anything else, staying in and watching the radar.

It's 1252 hrs. now. I'll update during the day.

1500 hrs.
I leave the apartment again, half thinking that the 18 person group is not going to show up. The sky is clearing, but still...depends on where people are coming from. We wait until 1535 hrs., the group shows up, so we get the boat ready in half the time. The sail is uneventful, the NYU students are happy. We end up heading in a little early because there is a front appearing to the west, a line of menacing clouds hanging over Jersey.

1804 hrs.
All the passengers have disembarked. Mike calls Visitor's Services to see what the ticket situation is. Still only two sold. Captain Charlie debates what to do. We've got five volunteers, two passengers, and a guest with a front approaching. No one really ever wants to tell eager passengers that we're canceling the sail, so the decision is postponed. At around 1835 hrs, a couple is seen checking out the sail times poster, so we have a volunteer approach them to see if they want to go out for a sail. They do, so we now have four passengers, so the captain makes the executive decision to go out on the 7-9 sail. I assign dock lines, we get the passengers aboard, Mike gives the safety speech, and we're ready to go.

The passengers are more than ready to help us raise sail, so I get them assigned to the main peak and throat lines. About halfway through raising the main, Mike calls me back to take over setting the main. He runs down to the engine room where there is obvious trouble. There are abnormal sounds coming from the aft cabin, and the transmission is not staying in gear. Charlie directs me to lower the main and raise the fore. This gets done, and then the captain asks for the main to be raised. Luckily, we had very enthusiastic passengers who were more than happy to raise the sail again.

All this time Captain Charlie is on the radio with the Coast Guard. First they direct him to radio channel 21. Then 22. After he gives them our position, East River off of Pier 11, then Pier A, drifting towards the deep water range. He tells them he is trying to stay off the Whitehall ferry terminal. They ask him if he has GPS (we don't) and whether he will anchor in the deep water range. Why the description of our position isn't good enough is not clear. Neither is their suggestion to anchor in the deep water range. The captain's plan is to gybe the main and sail into the pier.

Mike and ZZ have been working in the aft cabin on the transmission. After getting some fluid in the transmission, things seem to be working in some order, and we get the boat turned around. Since we can't trust reverse, the docking plan is to get the bow spring on, port side, haul it in tight, and get the boat around. We start coming in, and the captain decides this approach won't work, and we move everything to starboard side to.

We come close to hitting Peking, but the captain wasn't worried. We get the boat in tight to the float, and the passengers disembark. After, we move some docklines around, I direct the volunteers in getting the boat put to bed while Captain Charlie and Mike assess the state of the engine. There are some concerns that the transmission is leaking into other areas of the engine, and Captain Charlie alerts Captain Richard to the issues we faced this evening.

All in all, everyone handled themselves well. As far as volunteers, we had a deckhand, a deckhand in training, and two new (but luckily sharp) volunteers. I couldn't have asked for much more. Mike thanked all the volunteers, and we retired to Fresh Salt.

Funny how a day that starts off as a day of waiting turns into a day of being in high alert. The adrenelin is still running 3 1/2 hours after I got off the boat.

As Captain Charlie stated at Fresh Salt, "If all else fails, you can always put up the sails to get home." I thank everyday that I get to sail with this man. It's always a learning experience.