American/Arctic experience 2014
Swiftwing
Mon 17 Mar 2014 15:46
|
Krentz Marine Railway, 3048 Harryhogan Road, Callao,
Virginia.
When we arrived in New York it was snowing. One might wonder
why we decided to visit America in January? The idea of doing some work on
Swiftwing and then cruising down to Florida, before the middle of May, seemed
good at the time. The intention being to avoid the hurricanes and thunder-storms
of the summer months and to enjoy a mild spring without the oppressive heat. I
think today we are onto our third Polar express! {an Americanism for the Polar
winds and snow we are currently experiencing].
 Manhattan from the QE showing the almost completed Freedom Tower which
replaces the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.
Well, we left Southampton on 10th January on board the Queen
Elizabeth, one of the Cunard fleet of transatlantic liners, with a grand display
of fireworks as we pulled out of the docks. The celebration was for the Queen
Mary’s tenth birthday and she was leaving Southampton docks for a world cruise
at the same time as us. As a mode of transport it is definitely to
be recommended, the double bed had much more leg room then the airline seats of
British Airways and all the meals served in the Britannia restaurant were
excellent. Entertainment was varied and covered musicals and dancers to lectures
by an astronaut, a historian talking about New York, to ballroom dancing and
bridge and lots more. But probably the most interesting part of the trip was the
people that we met. Everybody was well travelled and many had done lots of trips
with Cunard. The weather also became very interesting with three days of 50 knot
winds, 70 knot gusts and eight metre seas. A ship that size does move in that
sort of weather and our course was changed to pass just North of the
Azores to avoid punching head-on into the large seas. The ship slowed down from
eighteen knots to twelve to prevent crashing into ship damaging waves which
caused her to stagger every now and again. At one stage the cabaret was
cancelled, as the theatre which is located in the bows, was diving and bouncing
about like Billy MacFadyen on a bouncy castle! So would I cross the North
Atlantic in January in Swiftwing? No!
Eight days later we arrived in New York on a grey snowy
morning, not quite as exciting as on Swiftwing a few years earlier, but still
pretty nice. After all the bad weather, we arrived only a few hours late, the
ship having steamed at 25 knots for three days to catch up for lost time. The
customs and immigration were very interested that we owned a boat in the
U.S. and had sailed it over the Atlantic, but not at all interested in all the
strange items we had in our heavy bags, such as five sacrificial anodes,
which weighed 20 kilos, a new fixed blade propeller... 20 kilos, a shower,
a Carbon Monoxide monitor and fortunately some warm clothing.
We had booked a hire car in New Jersey as it was half the
price of hiring in Manhattan, so jumped into a yellow cab to take us their, only
to find out that it was closed; half day on a Saturday! Fortunately the cab
driver lent us his phone and we arranged another hire car from Newark Airport,
just 20 minute drive away. Lots of cars to choose from, but we had to upgrade as
the economy car they tried to give us was a Fiat 500! After a five
hour drive, we arrived at our hotel, the Days Inn, Tappahannock. We were
treated as long lost friends by the staff with hugs all round. Dug gets called
Honey and I’m called Miss Beverley. We have stayed here so often in the past
that they give us the same room every time which we call our condo. It is the
size a reasonably sized flat at home.
On Monday morning we drove to Callao, to find that
Swiftwing was in good order and to start getting her ready for going back
in the water. Only problem being the weather, within two days we experienced our
first Polar Express and Atlantic clipper, which in other words means snow and
Arctic like temperatures! Cold air from the North meets warm moist air
from the South East/ Caribbean, resulting in lots of the white stuff! In
fact, at –18 degrees centigrade, the Rappahannock river froze. Nothing moved on
Wednesday, schools closed, airports closed, all the staff stayed at the hotel
rather than get stuck going home. It was rumoured that Wal-Mart had run out of
food. So, restricted to the condo and beginning to get a bit bored, we
went out for a walk, not for long, as it was Arctic conditions and I now see why
the Inuit need big hoods lined with fur!
 Road bridge over a frozen Rappahannock River.
We moved back on-board Swiftwing after two weeks. Dug and
Marion who own the yard have given us the use of a car while we are here, an old
Mercury
 which although in need of a
paint, is very comfortable with a huge V8 engine . It makes all the
difference as we are about four miles away from the small town of Calleo. We
thought that we didn’t have that much work to do on Swiftwing, just to finish
the cockpit off and some mast work, but with the weather being as it is, Duggy
decided that he would fit out the aft cabin. For years now we have been
looking at rock wool insulation and have carried the melamine, left over from
doing the saloon under our mattress. So now we have teak tongue and grove on the
aft bulkhead
 and everything is lined and now painted. Today we are
just at the stage of finally putting it all back together. We have some teak
louvre doors coming for one of the cupboards to add the finishing touches. For
anyone coming to visit us next year, the forepeak is the next project. All the
toe rails have been varnished and we have a new Iroko rubbing strake which was
fitted by the yard. It doesn’t sound very much but I have now used up 1.5 litres
of varnish and about another litre of paint, not to mention a sander that
now feels in need of a holiday. We have really only lost about two days from bad
weather and yesterday we had lunch on deck as it was really warm. So, we have
been able to work everyday which we wouldn’t have been able to do at home.
From our deck we look out onto open water and have thousands of geese flying
over us morning and evening. We also have thousands of swans which land just off
the end of the dock. In Virginia they are a problem as there are so many of them
and the State has started a programme of neutering them. Doing our bit for the
local wildlife, we have put up a bird feeder on a nearby bush and
now have red cardinals, blue jays and blue tits feeding from it. They go
through large bags of seed at an alarming rate! In the evening we get into
bed with a hot water bottle, the heater on and watch a DVD (Breaking Bad.....I
thoroughly recommend the series). Really, the only challenge is the outside
toilet, a portaloo type contraption, which at times has been frozen to a block
of ice! However, in two minutes walk we are at the very warm and cosy toilet a
shower facilities in the yard house. Lin and Larry Pardy stayed in it for the
winter a few years ago. Today it was snowing and blowing so hard, that a
blizzard was blowing through the ventilation slats in the portaloo causing
drifting inside!
Duggy and Dug the yard owner, get to play with cars on a
Sunday. Dug must have over 30 in the shed just next to Swiftwing and the other
day they rescued an Oldsmobile from the bushes where it had been lying for three
years, Dug having just found out that they are now collectible and are
increasing in value. The other Sunday they took out about 14 cars and
disappeared for a while in a 1930 Oakland. It looks like it came out of
the Waltons.
 A selection of Dugs cars as viewed from the deck of
Swiftwing. Back row from left to right, 911 Porsche convertible four wheel
drive(very rare), Jaguar 3.8 (Morse), Ford Galaxy 500 convertible and Plymouth
Road Runner, 500 horse power. Next row... Karman Ghia convertible, Jaguar XJ6
Vanden Plas, 1952 Dodge and 1954 Dodge. Next row two MGB’s , Dodge Rambler and a
1964 Imperial fastback (as favoured by Jackie Kennedy)
 The 1930’ Oakland. The boys took this for a drive, apparently doesn’t
handle as well as the Porsche
So with about five inches of snow on the deck we are still
enjoying ourselves and hope to leave in a few weeks to get down to sunny
Florida.
  That’s all for now.
|