I would have called it a lifeboat, but it does get used for excursions to shore during a typical cruise aboard the schooner Louis R. French.
For more schooner sailing experiences, take a look at my Under Sail photo album at Thistle Finch editions.
Plenty of space for hanging clothes, by New England standards
A traditional New England home comes without closets, or perhaps has some quirky ones that were added later but inefficiently. It’s an unanticipated jolt for those of us who grew up elsewhere.
That tradition was something our renovation sought to rectify. Indeed, maximizing storage space was a pivotal consideration in our planning. As I’ve noted, our present home is smaller than the previous one, not that its closets were notable, even before considering all the storage capacity we had in the red barn. Yes, the barn that inspired this blog. The garden shed we added here is much, much smaller.
A few locals have been surprised by the results – what they see as closets everywhere in the newly redesigned upstairs. Each bedroom has one. Although these are shallower than a full-sized walk-in closet, they are deep enough for hanging clothes, which is our primary need.
The key in adding these came in realizing that the distance between the gable windows was two feet, enough to run narrow closets along the dividing line between the front and back bedrooms. Our original plan had those closets alternating, half for one bedroom and the other half for its neighbor. But that changed when we decided to give all of that opening to the back bedrooms, which were also smaller.
In compensation, the two front bedrooms got a shallow loft running atop those closets, as well as their own closets elsewhere in the reconfigured rooms.
Quite simply, the closet in each bedroom is unique.
Additional storage space appears in the laundry room as well as a small hallway broom closet. Yes, even a place to stash the vacuum cleaner.
Not every lover finds roses comforting
In support of that statement, let me offer Long-Stem Roses in a Shattered Mirror, my collection of poems released to the public today.
Think what happens when a hot relationship goes belly up and everything you trusted turns painful.
These poems arise in a brutally honest reevaluation of those interactions, as one of the lovers insisted on at the time, as well as the larger hopes and desires.
Many of the poems appeared in small-press literary magazines around the globe, but this is their first outing complete.
I have come a long, long way since, perhaps because of lessons I learned in these earlier relationships. The poems remain intense, vivid, and powerfully moving, even at my age.
For my series of passionate roses, check out my collection in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords.com and its affiliated online retailers. Or ask your public library to obtain it.
Anyone else offended by corporate naming rights?
That is, on buildings and other places that were largely funded by the public?
Where I grew up, though, the NCR Auditorium was totally private and yet open for community groups and events.
There’s more than shells to collect on the beach
And there’s more than sea glass, too.
Sometimes it’s fun to play with what you tote home, creating whimsical designs like the ones you’ll find in the Shore Things free photo album at my Thistle Finch blog.
How many types of boats under sail do you recognize?
Living around big waters, as I do now, means hearing a number of new terms to identify boats big and small. When you merely read about them, say in a history book, you can usually skim over the word and move on.
Not so when you’re trying to describe what you just saw.
Today we won’t attempt to get into the array of mostly motorized vessels. Not even a Bayliner versus a Boston Whaler. Naval ships alone would require a long list.
Instead, let’s look at a general overview of boats originally powered by the wind. (Admittedly, today many of them will have an internal engine for additional power.) These can range from small sailboats to majestic tall ships.
- Sloop. The most common type of sailing vessel, it has a single mast, usually with one triangular mainsail (in what’s called Bermuda rigging) and, in the front, a triangular headsail, usually a jib. These can range from small, single-person fun boats to larger racing boats manned by trained crews.
- Cat. Or catboat. Has a single mast rising from the front of the boat and a large, single sail on a long boom. A second beam of wood, called a gaff, runs along the top of the sail, turning it into a four-sided sheet of hexagonal shape rather than the triangle. They were popular New England workboats around the early 1900s, short (typically ) 20 to 30 feet long and wide, highly stable, and have made a comeback today.
- Cutter. A single-masted vessel resembling a sloop, but often having a gaff-rigged mainsail and an extended spar called a long bowsprit extending from the bow, which allows a second headsail (a staysail, or “staysul.”)
- Schooner. Two or more masts, with the largest sail (the mainsail) at the aft, plus a foresail (resembling the mainsail) on the mast ahead of it as well as a jib and staysail at the bowsprit. They may also have one or more topsails and a small sail called a mizzen aft of the mainsail. With their complex rigging, they can be fast and undeniably majestic. And, yes, my favorite.
- Ketch. Resembles a schooner but has an extra mast behind the mainsail.
- Yawl. This term has several different meanings, the first regarding rigs with one or two fully equipped masts plus a mizzen mast aft. It can also refer to a double-ended hull boat that could be worked from the beaches, not that I’m finding any reference to sailing in what would be the equivalent of reverse gear. Some of them, if you’re a bettor, may have been the fastest-sailing open boats ever built. And it even seems to be a kind of dinghy. Just so you get an idea of how loose some of these terms can be.
- Brig. This two-masted ship introduces us to square-rigging with sails arrayed on horizontal spars perpendicular to the keel and masts – that is, “squared.” The spars, called yards, present the sails to face the wind from behind. The foremast of a brig is always square-rigged, but some varieties may have a gaff or lateen sail on the mainmast. (Lateen is an ancient arrangement I won’t get into unless you’re going to Egypt.) “Square,” as far as masts go, means more or less perpendicular to the hull, unlike the ones more or less parallel to the hull. Trust me on this.
- Barquentine. Its foremast was square-rigged, with gaff-rigged masts behind. But let’s skip ahead.
- Barque (or bark). A three- to five-masted square-rigged ship consisting of a foremast, mainmast, and a smaller, often gaff-rigged mizzen mast at the aft for steering stability. Far and away the most numerous of the square-rigged vessels. Enough of the finer points. Let’s turn to the most glorious.
- Tall (or full-rigged) ship. Three or more masts, all fully square-rigged, one sail above another, often five or six on a mast, with a hull often much longer than a schooner. The individual sails were smaller than a schooner’s and less likely to rip out in a storm, but the number of them provided more overall sail surface, allowing for maximum speed. The downside was that crews of 30 or more sailors were required for handling those sheets. Still, seeing one of them is exciting. It’s what you really picture first, after all. Now, for all of the subcategories, such as a frigate.
Trying to make sense of the world
Thinking without words? How about being born deaf? How would you conceptualize anything?
The inner dialogue to get through a day., things like “Let’s take a shower.”
And then? “Let’s eat,” even if it’s only one plate.
~*~
What does the dog know
that I don’t?
Kinisi 272
Meaning?
Just what is?
Cruise ship tender heads for the shore
Many cruise ships to Rockland, Maine, are too big for the harbor itself. Instead, they drop anchor just beyond and ferry their passengers to the town.
This is how it looked from the historic schooner Louis R. French last summer.
For more schooner experiences, take a look at my Under Sail photo album at Thistle Finch editions.
My ‘hood
Jnana's Red Barn 