The Sailing Club, Inc.

Frostbite October 2006

Never let it be said that The Sailing Club doesn’t know how to make the best of a situation. This year saw the return of an old classic – the Frostbite Trip, which has traditionally sailed on the last weekend of October. This year’s trip drew participants from as far away as Boulder, Colorado (Mark Rosenstein) and Ledgewood, New Jersey (Cheryl Erghott). This year’s trip began on Friday, as it also was planned to coincide with the annual Fall Into St. Michaels Festival, complete with Jack Russell Terrier races, pumpkin carving contests, and a Dachshund Dash! Our original plan was to sail Friday to Herrington Harbor, then on to St. Mike’s on Saturday. Late October is when winds are expected to be seasonably fresh. While the weather forecasts predicted some rain, no one knew just how wrong that would be. However, by Friday morning the forecast was predicting late afternoon rain, heavy at times, accompanied by high winds, which were supposed to continue through late Saturday. Now it’s not good form for a sailing club to shy away from windy weather, but in this case the winds were forecast to be around 35 knots, with gusts as high as 50 knots. As the front wasn’t anticipated to come through until later in the day, we decided to sail around the bay while conditions were favorable, and stay in Rock Hall for the evening. We would skip going to Herrington Harbor, and in the morning we would reconsider the prospects of getting to St. Michaels. Friday’s sail was in delightful, although the winds were mostly light and variable, and mostly from the south, so it would have been a really long sail (or motor) to get to Herrington Harbor anyway. Nonetheless, there was plenty of opportunity to practice tacking, and other similarly subtle aspects of sailing. By mid-afternoon, a few raindrops were starting to be felt, so exercising the aforementioned discretion, all three boats headed back to the marina. It did finally start to rain with some seriousness by around dinner hour, so each crew hunkered down and forged a meal out of the various supplies brought on board, none of which were designed for dinner, as we had planned to eat out both nights. Rest assured, no one went hungry. During the night the rain continued, heavy at times, light at others. The wind did the same. When we awoke Saturday morning, we found part of Haven’s parking lot flooded, as the water level had risen over the top of the bulkhead from so much rain (fortunately, it was not the part of the lot in front of the showers and heads). However, the skies were mostly clear, and the winds calm. But the overnight storm had apparently caused a lot of road flooding, downed trees and power outages, and the forecasts were for more of the heavy winds, starting around mid-morning. Based on these dire forecasts, and the understandable concerns of the charter company, we decided not to go sailing, and most of us piled into a few cars and drove the hour and a half to St. Michaels. By the time we got there, the skies had cleared completely and it turned into a most delightful day. The antique car parade was just starting, all the shops were open, and people were milling about all over the place. But, St. Mike’s just isn’t that big a town, and before we left the marina, we had all agreed to have a group dinner in Rock Hall that evening. On our return to the marina, we learned that the heavy winds never materialized, and it would have been a very nice sailing day. The heavy winds did eventually appear, but not until later in the afternoon. Since our original plans to have a group dinner at Herrington Harbor had been scuttled, we chose to follow the recommendations of Jacki and Dave, owners of Haven Charters, and did our group ‘thing’ at the Harbor Shack Bar and Grille, near where the Fin, Fur and Feather used to be. This turned out to be THE place to hang out in Rock Hall! We had a great time, the food and service were great, and everyone agreed it was far better than that ‘other place.’ Following dinner, Jefff Hamer arranged a surprise birthday celebration for Linda Baker, complete with the traditional birthday pumpkin, artistically decorated by Ray Gray and his crew. Surprisingly, we were able to silently cram 12 people into the cockpit of Jeff’s boat without detection. In addition, Jeff gave Linda a few novelty gifts. We were told the leather whip was just for decoration. After the celebration, we learned of the command hierarchy that Jeff established on his boat, abetted by Wench No. 1 (Cecilia Sweeney). Wenches 2 through 5 (Linda, Mary Ann Gordon, Gloria Deodato and Pam Culligan) weren’t necessarily pleased with the arrangement, but tolerated this Bligh-like system. That is until they were encouraged to unionize and go on strike. It was then that the command structure collapsed like a deflated spinnaker. This turned out not to be too harmful a situation, as the next day’s weather was not conducive to sailing, with some heavy winds and rough seas. So we all made a leisurely departure after breakfast, knowing we made the best of the weekend situation.