Day 290 - Kingston — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 57, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $105, daily high temperature 84°f

The oppressive heat wave has ended. Dale and Andy toured the Roosevelt mansion and John and Priscilla took a dingy ride to the west side of the Hudson River and then went to the swimming pool.

Dale and Andy with Franklin and Eleanor.

The highlight of the day was a visit from our long time friends John and Laura Jagielski. We have know them since 1980 when John joined Rust-Oleum. We met Laura at the RO sales meeting in Hawaii and again on a Caribbean cruise with RO distributors. They live in Briarcliff Manor which is 10 minutes from the marina we were staying at in Croton on Hudson. They made reservations for dinner at an eclectic little restaurant on the river called the Boathouse. Great food and great fun to see John and Laura again.

Priscilla, John, Laura and John at the Bosthouse.

The check out process at the marina was at best bizarre. We had been talking and emailing the marina manager Steve Plotkin for two months but could not get him to quote a slip rate. He promised the best rate possible so we would tell other Loopers.
Eventually he mumbled maybe I can do $840 for the week. When we arrived we told him we had won a drawing at the Looper Rendezvous for one free night at his marina. He was flabbergasted and said he didn’t know where it came from. Maybe it was from the rendezvous last fall or a photo copy. He was not happy. In the end the invoice for six days was $840 by charging a premium for the three days around the Fourth of July and $20 for electric per day. So much for winning the Looper drawing.

A little bit of history. The Hudson River is named after the English explorer Henry Hudson. He also worked for the Dutch and his ship was named Half Moon. Therefore the derivation of the name of our marina Half Moon Bay. He was looking for the Northwest Passage to get to China. On a subsequent voyage he was cruising on James Bay in Canada and became iced in over the winter. In the spring he wanted to continue west. His crew mutinied and put him adrift in a lifeboat with his son and seven other crew that were sick or still loyal to the Captain Hudson. They were never seen again.

We cruised past West Point on our way to Kingston, NY. Photo by Andy.

We arrived in Kingston, NY at 1:30 pm and tied up to the Municipal Marina. Downtown Kingston with numerous shops and restaurants is right next to us.

The metal docks are very noisy when someone walks on them. No one can sneak up on us at this marina. The Japanese built floors to be noisy to warn them if ninjas were coming. They called them nightingale floors because they sang like a bird when walked on.

Kingston has a long maritime history of ship building.

Bonus photo – I finally learned what the shredded rags are used for on the boom topping lift on this gaff rigged schooner. Answer below.

The sail is hoisted between the two boom topping lifts. The shredded rags are used as chafing gear so the sails do not rub on the topping lift lines and wear a hole through them.

Captain Father John

Sunday will be our last day in salt water and dealing with tides. We will pass through the Troy lock and will be in Waterford, NY at the start of the Erie Canal. Waterford has a free dock with power and water so we might stay there two nights.

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.” – Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He was born near the end of the colonial era, somewhere near the then-unmarked border between North and South Carolina, into a recently immigrated Scots-Irish farming family of relatively modest means. During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson, whose family supported the revolutionary cause, acted as a courier. At age 13, he was captured and mistreated by the British army. He later became a lawyer. He was also elected to Congressional office, first to the U.S. House of Representativesand twice to the U.S. Senate.