this page will ALWAYS be under construction..it .changes a lot

IT'S A TOTAL MYSTERY TO ME!

I've been doing stuff on the Bay and it's tribs since I was 3...Taylors Island, The Nassawanga, The Manokin, Venice on the Bay, Maryland Beach, Kurtz Pleasure Beach, Bodkin and Rock Creek...all these names have a huge resonance with me. But the more I see, the more I realize there's a lot of stuff I don't know about boats & the Bay. Help me out here. (email me at: webwolf@nbayracing.com)

for instance...

Yeah, there IS a mast on this thing, but before you get smug, remember that time you really needed to win the last race in a series and there was an 8 car pile up on the beltway? Your bowman and headsail trimmer skidded into the parking lot a half hour late and you had ten minutes to make your Start???

Suddenly the concept doesn't seem so outrageous, does it...

This beast was around the bay in the mid-late 90's. Rumor had it that Dan Rowan (Rowan & Martin Laugh-In fame) brought it over from Europe. We saw it in Balto's Inner Harbor and then again at St. Michaels when the Wooden Boat Show was going on. Check out the leeboards! And the stubby mast. I guess it was a gaffer...I never saw it under sail. We anchored just off her in St. Mike's and during the night a completely unforecasted T-storm blew up...we were dragging and just about everyone else was, too. I don't remember what the holding ground is in St. Michaels harbor but it isn't great. Apparently this baby dragged her ground tackle and rode up on to someone else during the storm...we were close enough to hear some maniac unleash the longest, most vitriolic spate of cussing I've ever heard. Ever! I mean, this went on for a good ten minutes. Ten minutes is a long time to listen to someone cuss out another yacht, especially in the middle of the night. It was like being in a Hemingway story for a while...finally WE started yelling at the guy to shut the F up! Anyway, next morning the canalboat-thingie was nowhere to be seen, so we have no idea what happened and I never saw her again, anywhere. Oddball yatchett, think it was sort of a puke-green.

I've spotted these things coming into Annapolis a bunch of times. What are they? Why dont the oars have blades on them for cripes sake?!? and........how can I get a ride in one?

Okay. Bay Bridge. Big deal. But: why are the winds on one side so much different from the ones on the other? I mean, it's a bridge, not a continent!

I'm not kidding! I've seen a perfectly good 12-17 kn southerly on the south side of the thing go to beans at Sandy Point light. I dont mean go from 12 to 8. I mean 12 to 2! Same thing only inverted with a strong NW'er.

Look at it...it's a bridge for cryin' out loud.

Weird.

I've seen this passage-maker in Acton Cove once or twice...I think the boat is cool. I'd love to be doing this when I'm the age of the gentleman on board. Who is this feller and where is he now?

Are these things as much fun as they look or are they just total bruisers?

I admit to having a fascination with them since I was about 10 and cruised down to St. Michael's on some distant relative's monster powerboat. That day, a strong T-storm came in, walloped the fleet and capsized dozens of sailing dinks...we spent a couple hours helping retrieve wet sailors from the river and from the absolute worst infestation of sea nettles I've ever seen in the Bay. I think that experience put me off wanting to have anything to do with Log Canoes for awhile...but I am curious, frankly.

Are they a blast?

or Just a Box of Pain?

Did Columbus get to Baltimore?

okay, obviously not. But here's the Pinta and the Nina or something slatting into the Turning Basin off Canton. Are these things total pigs, or what?

I think it's neat that someone rebuilt the ducklings true to the originals and then had the 'nads to actually sail these beasts somewhere. It ain't me, babe.

Did anyone actually have a conversation with any of the folks sailing these puppies? I bet it was some powerfully strange duty. This was a few years back, I'm thinking maybe '95 or so?

Any details would be nice...I just took a few pix, drop-jawed in amazement, and never thought about these boats again for a bunch of years.

Next time your foredeck crew starts whining, show them the Pride or some other Topsail Schooner with a really long 'sprit. Ask them would they rather do a headsail change out there!

I'd like to know what it's like to claw down that flying jib when you've got a honking 30 knots, in a big seaway...and it's SNOWING. It were me, I'd have two hands for myself and zilch for the boat!

I guess the point is to get it down before conditions get like that, but supposing you don't?

When I say "I'd like to know what it's like," I mean I'd like to HEAR or READ it...no experience necessary!

'Oh, intrepid Bowman!!'

Can you imagine slapping some VC Offshore on this hawg?

"When you going in?"

"Oh, soon as the bottom's done...I figure May, 2006."

more later...I gotta go

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