Retirement so far has been very different from what I imagined it would be. I was expecting to have loads of free time but seem to have wound up with a lot less. Too many hobbies and especially too many things to do, which I've been putting off for 30 plus years. I spend most of my days working on and sailing the 400 (more than in the past) and I've been restoring a bunch of old cars - mostly Corvettes. I'm even building a modernized version of a 63 Corvette Grand Sport racecar from almost scratch, not that I will actually race this 575 hp 2,000-pound beast when it's done. The hurricanes down in Florida didn't exactly help either - I've had to drive down there a number of times. Anyway, that's my excuse for missing the last issue. What's yours? Thom & Doug and I have been begging for material to put into Mainsheet for years. We've probably written half of the published articles. I jokingly once said that one of these days we'll wind up with nothing in the magazine. It finally happened. The rest of you have got to start contributing. We're running out of ideas.
On a technical note, the new 400s have a shorter wing keel. I was helping Dave Cherry, our Secretary/Treasurer work on his newer 400 (hull 3 12) which was just hauled and parked in front of another newer 400 (hull 290 series) and it was obvious the second I drove up. I measured the difference at around 6 to 7 inches. Looking at the bilge area inside the boats, the difference appears to be in the keel stub attached to the hull and not in the keel itself. Hull 312 measures around 6 to 7 inches shorter from the cabin sole to the top of the keel bolts. Based on my 10 years experience with a 400, that would put the actual depth around 5'3" vs. 5'9 or 10". Big difference - I could really use the 7 inches to help get the boat into Punta Gorda (FL). It will be staying in Perth Amboy (NJ) until they finish dredging down there or ?
Speaking of Dave, I went sailing with him and his wife Joyce the other day and someone had to go up the mast to tape some rubber protectors onto the upper spreaders. Dave tried a climbing apparatus which didn't work that well, so Joyce volunteered, we hoisted her up, and I got the picture of her up there. How many of our wives would actually go up there?
Mainsheet has raised its price per issue and we've had to increase the association dues by $2.00 per year to cover it. This went into effect a few months ago and will apply to all future renewals.
We've just about run out of T-shirts and I'm not planning on ordering any more. There was never much interest and it took around 7 or 8 years to get rid of our inventory. We still have a few hats and canvas bags left, and will give them away to anyone who writes any article that we can put into Mainsheet.
I've been Commodore for 10 years now, and it may be long enough. I plan on stepping down before the end of next year (2006). 1 would hate to see the association fall apart and I hope someone out there is willing to take over when this happens.