Wednesday’s are “beer can” race days for yacht club sailing fleets country wide and Annapolis is no exception. The difference here is that there are LOTS of boats of every size, description and sail type. Fancy Mylar sails, tiny red colored sails, big jibs, little jibs, sleek boats that look fast standing still, small boats with barely any waterline. We saw some smart seamanship as boats turned and crews worked together to take down sails at the race’s conclusion. And some beginning (we guessed!) sailors trying desperately (at least that would be my mindset) to tack to get to the finish line before crashing into boats in the marina across from ours.
The finish line was at the end of the pier next to ours so we got to experience the calling out of sail numbers as each boat passed the finish line and the blast of the air horn announcing that a particular boat had won in its class. Based on the number of “toots” we heard, there must have been a dozen or more classes. The finish was not spectacular as the wind was minimal, but we rooted for little boats to get past the finish line as bigger, fancy sail boats crept up behind them.
Thursday, we left Annapolis for the short cruise to Galesville’s Hartge Yacht Basin. As we left Annapolis, we spotted the row of warship grey training ships of the USNA and then saw one of them returning to port as we headed out into the Chesapeake.
Arrived mid-day at Hartge and moored Dot Calm for the last time this season (or so we thought….no fuel here, so we will have to go to nearest fueling station in the morning).
Now the real work of getting ready to leave Dot Calm for the season begins. We have a list as long as Cliff’s arm of things we want to get done before next summer including replacing the outdoor and indoor carpets, various maintenance projects, some gelcoat repairs and lots of this’s and that’s.
