I was so proud. The six of us volunteers who, last Saturday the 16th, using some creativity, three handy-billy's. various lengths of rope, took advantage of a westerly breeze and slack tide to align the three yokohama's up against their pilings on the dock face, rather than hiding behind them. We all understood however, that the arrangement was iffy. We had no way for restraining parts of the collection; one yokohoma and an unconstrained telephone pole segment, from floating free at the next high tide and westerly breeze.
Sometime between then and last Friday, those conditions came to pass, probably several times-enough to allow our carefully positioned arrangement to float free and resume their useless positions under the dock.
Such was the situation I found when I came aboard this last Saturday morning in a pretty good driving rain. In a further complication. The unusually high king tide, raised the schooner's caprail a good 10 inches higher than the dock benches, stretching the capability of our gangway falls to hold the gangway off the cap rail. With the later arrival on board of Volunteer Hugh Sheldon, the two of us hauled another four feet of boat falls out of the already stretched configuration, to lift the gangway free of the deteriorating sword matte, that had long ago lost its protective capability. We three additional lines over the free floating telephone pole to arrest its floating away tendency.
So, until our schooner can leave the dock and motor off to her 10-year Shipyard appointment, we are consigned to hoping for another favorable combination of wind, tide, and volunteer availability to try again.
And so, we watch the weather. and check our emails, or texts, for an alert to come down for help down at the Maritime Center to wrangle these d)*&^~! yokohama's back into position, for good. And I think I"ve found the answer.. electrician's Fish Tape.
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