Another old Post Card

This card features my favorite island and favorite class of small racing dinghy:

The Moths pictured here are quite primitive and appear to date to the very early 1930s. They feature transom bows and probably have heavy, pivoting centerboards rather than "jab" or "dagger" boards which were introduced to the class by the mid-1930s.  Although the card is postmarked August 25, 1938 the card probably was available in drug stores and novelty shops well before that date  Hull shapes changed at a revolutionary pace rather than an evolutionary one during that first decade.  By 1938 the Moth Class had round bilge shapes such as Antares, Stormy, and Imp Too.  I can just make out the name Pluto on the side of the boat closest to the camera.  It was a tradition in the old Evening Star Yacht Club to name Moths after stars, planets, constellations, etc. and so while this race is taking place in Brigantine,  no doubt most of the fleet is from the ESYC in nearby Atlantic City.  The presence of boats with two digit sail numbers is another clue to the correct age of the image.  The boat sporting "LE 3" on the sail is probably a visitor from the Little Egg YC, which like many Barnegat Bay clubs used their own fleet numbering system rather than that of the fledgling National Moth Boat Association.

The ink on the reverse side of the card is faded to the point where I had to resort to the aid of a small magnifying glass to make out the message and address.  The card is addressed to a Mrs. W. Helm at Box 6-5-2, Laurel Springs, NJ.  That's interesting in as much as Laurel Springs is less than 50 miles from Atlantic City.  I purchased the card from a vendor in New Castle, Kentucky.  One wonders how the card traveled so far after it's first trip through the mail?  One also wonders if this card is the sole survivor of this photograph?  Turning to the message, the writer is someone named Priscilla.  Priscilla, a woman of few words, wants Mrs. Helm and family to know that she's having a good time in Atlantic City.  She doesn't add on the well used line of  "wish you were here".  One reads into this that Priscilla, although concerned with the Helm family's well being, didn't particularly want them under foot during her brief spell of R and R by the sea.  Other notables and ponderables  seen on this side of the card include the fact that Brigantine Beach was considered "Atlantic City's smartest suburb".  Really, Brigantine, a separate island, a suburb?  One wonders if Ventnor, Margate and Long Port (towns on the same Absecon island as AC) were also considered suburbs of the "big" town?  Note that postage was just a penny.  The stamp of course predates the self stick variety we know today.  Back then one had to lick the stamp (or otherwise moisten the adhesive) before applying it to the card.  If I wanted to carefully lift the stamp off the card and then solubilize both, perhaps there would be enough extractable DNA from that lick to learn a bit about the mysterious Priscilla, such as her ethnicity, predisposition to a laundry list of chronic diseases and so on.  But, like Mrs. Helm, Priscilla is probably no longer with  us--the card we know from the postmark is 81 years old.  The sender and recipient were perhaps in their late teens to early 20s, so by now would either pushing 100 or beyond that age.  No, I will allow Priscilla to sleep in peace and enjoy the card as it is--a rare surviving window into a world which, like the folks involved, no longer exists.

Penguin 7072. One last backward glance.

Back in the fall Bill Walton flew up from Texas, rented a U-Haul van and picked up a Penguin class dinghy which I'd owned for the better part of forty years.  This wasn't just any Penguin dinghy but one of six which his father build in 1963 and the only known survivor of that cluster of boats.

Actually, my involvement with this boat began during the winter of 1963 when I helped Bill's father John while he built these boats.  During the winter of 1962/63 a bunch of island kids, including your diarist, would hang out in John's shop.  He'd put us to work doing small tasks while the boats were under construction.  One of my jobs was to take a stick of wood with sandpaper glued on and ream the squeezed out glue slag from the interior of the centerboard trunks until the pivoting centerboard worked smoothly.  I got five out of the six trunks satisfactorily sanded but try as I might, I just couldn't quite get the trunk of the orange boat to work properly.  School and other activities interrupted my time at the boathouse and somehow communicating the status of the orange boat's trunk slipped through the cracks.  In spring, the boats were picked up by their respective buyers.  I think only one or two found owners at Brigantine YC.

Later that summer I attended a multi-class regatta in my Moth down at Corinthian YC in Cape May.  The club, as was normal practice in those days, used a rolling start which initially separated the various classes by five minutes; i.e. the first class's starting signal was the 5 minute warning for the second class and that in turn was the 10 minute warning for the third class and so on.  Moths and Penguins were at the tail end of the start sequence pecking order and so I had a bit of time on my hands.  I noticed an orange Penguin not far away and I sailed over, hailed them and said "That's a Walton Penguin!"  The boat's crew, her husband and wife owners, confirmed that indeed it was and asked how I knew.  I said "I worked on those boats while they were being built."  They asked what part of the boat I'd worked on and I replied "The centerboard trunk."  The wife looked at me stonily across the intervening water and said "That's the part that doesn't work!"  I quickly sailed away...

Twelve years later, being both boat-less and recently discharged from the Coast Guard (oh, and without much money) I decided to drive down the  coast from Brigantine, revisiting the various clubs where I used to race to see if there were any boats for sale within my slim price range.  After stopping at various clubs without success, I found myself at Corinthian YC.  At the very end of the boat storage yard, right at the edge of the water was an Orange Penguin with a white bottom.  She was resting upside down but I knew at once that this was that boat.  Sure enough, after flipping her over I saw John Walton's builder's tag.

I happened to know the girl working the club bar (we both were students at the University of Delaware) and so I asked her to see if she could learn which club member owned that boat.  The owner turned out to be a lawyer from Philadelphia who proved only too pleased to untangle himself from the seldom used Penguin.  The boom had been trapped under the hull but the wooden mast had floated off, probably with the first high tide.  Luckily, he had the rudder, sail and other small gear for the boat in a storage locker.  The hull was sound except for the rub rails which had been in direct contact with the damp sand.  I offered him a hundred dollars and he quickly accepted.  I borrowed a trailer and brought the boat back to her birthplace.  I had a local boatyard replace the rotted rub rails but I reserved the task of sorting out the centerboard trunk to myself.  Providence had given me a second chance to  right this wrong and I did.  When finished, the blade pivoted effortlessly.  I repainted the little boat white and sanded and revarnished her interior.  Jack Wright, a well known Penguin builder in Germantown, PA supplied a used mast for $25 dollars.  After putting the hardware back on, I sailed the Penguin for several years before getting hip deep with Moth Boats again.  Once I started racing Moths, the Penguin sat in the garage.  From time to time I'd look at the boat and tell myself I should pull her out and sail her again, but I never got around to doing that.

I needed to clear out my garage and decided that I didn't want this bit of Brigantine history to just disappear so I spoke with other long standing members of the BYC until I learned Bill's contact information.  I emailed Bill and offered him the boat for a very small price.  He immediately emailed back saying that he wanted the boat as a tangible connection for his son to his paternal grandfather and to the island.

Over the years I've bought and sold many boats.  I've yet to regret the selling of a plastic boat.  The boats I do miss have all been wood.  Why is there a slob sentimentality connection between me and wood boats?  Why can I sell off a glass boat with flinty-eyed resolve?  Perhaps it's due to woodies being constructed from once living things. Or perhaps the act of selling a particular bit of wood marks the severance from people and places that where once a large part of an early and formative era of my existence.  I don't know, but the tug is genuine. 

Brigantine, spring of 1963.  Penguin hulls and spars resting outside the Walton family boathouse. One of my boyhood pals, Paul Rosell, lived in the grey house (with the skinny white tv tower) directly across the alley from the Walton's.

The orange hull with the dark boot stripe and white bottom is Nr 7072.  John Walton's Lightning Starlight, Nr 1726 can be seen in the background. These two period photos are courtesy of Bill Walton.  Moths, Penguins and Lightnings comprised the three classes which were raced at BYC in those days.

The sailmaker's patch on the original sail for the boat.

Outdoors, waiting for pickup.  Of course it rained.  First time wet in many years!

Hull number carved into the keel.

John Walton's builder tag on the inside of the transom.

Basically sound.  Just needs a lick of varnish and new exterior paint.

The eleven foot 6 inch hull just fit inside the twelve foot van.  John took the boat to Chestertown, MD for storage in a friend's shop until he can return in the spring for the long ride back to Texas where he lives.  I'm storing the mast and other small bits to save him a little on the storage space until then.  Bill Walton is seen here wearing the green jacket.  Tweezerman, closer to the camera, graciously came over to help with the lifting since I was, at that point, still recovering from a TBI which resulted in me having to have a craniotomy.

I hate to see her go but returning her to the builder's family is good and happy ending to my Penguin ownership.  I know she'll be well looked after.  Smooth Sailing, John!

A Wicked Good Day at the Beach

This past three-day weekend, which included Memorial Day, marks the unofficial start of summer. This is particularly so within the small communities along the shore.  And although most businesses look forward to the influx of tourists ("have to make it during the season, ya know")  most residents dread the up tick in traffic, long lines at the island liquor store, etc. and so look forward to the other three-day weekend which marks the unofficial end of summer--Labor day, in early September.

The view from the cut in the dune at the oceanward end of 22nd St. is timeless.  The beach grass and bayberries which stabilize the dune quickly give way to the arid vegetation-free zone of constantly salted beach.  If you study the sea in the background you can just make out whitecaps.  There was a strong SW wind all weekend long.  This did not keep people from attempting to lay about in beach chairs but the chill air and the sandblasting tended to make lazy beach reading a bit of a chore.  The west wall of the Gulf Steam is far beyond the horizon.  We occasionally get lucky with  random Gulf Stream eddies which radiate landward off the west wall, and the wall itself can move in and out, but from my perspective the water temp in May is suitable only for those below the age of 12 or those wearing a wetsuit. 

A few of the island's beaches did have life guards over the long weekend.  Looking towards the beach at 26th St. revealed a goodly crowd.  Full life guard coverage doesn't start until the end of June.  Beach tags go from the preseason cost of $15.00 each to $18.00 each on the 1st of June.

The old hotel, built during the initial land boom in 1927, survived another winter.  In a couple years it will be 90 years old.  I remember back in 1977, a local bakery baked a huge cake in the shape of the hotel to honor its 50th year.  Fifty years seemed like a big deal back then when I was a good bit younger than fifty!

Another tell tale sign of the arrival of summer is the renewed flights of banner planes.

This one staggered slowly across the sky into the face of the 20 knot breeze like a fat old bumble bee .  No doubt the exposed engine makes life easier for the mechanic but one would think that having a streamlined cowling would help aerodynamics.

I had no idea what "Wicked" was all about so I googled it for you.  Apparently it's a musical that retells the story of the Wizard of Oz from the various witches' perspectives.  The producers must be trolling the beaches for a New York crowd since South Jersey isn't included as an off Broadway stop for this show.  Personally, I find it easier to relate to banners instructing me to drink beer or buy a particular brand of sunscreen.  As the plane and its banner gradually got smaller I reluctantly crossed the dune and returned to my spring chores of removing storm glass, installing screens, mending the drive way gates and pulling weeds.  The annual BYC Classic Moth Regatta is just four weeks away!

2014 North End Beach Walk

It's been a couple years since I've walked to the north end of Brigantine.  I had an idle afternoon so I decided to see how the various storms have altered the undeveloped part of this barrier island.  Newbies to this blog can view the pix from my earlier excursion here and here.

In the interest of time we drove rather than to ride bikes to the north end of Brigantine Avenue, and parked near where the road dead ends.

These houses are still under repair almost two years after Hurricane Sandy.

The City has repaired the promenade and the narrow, adjoining beach has had its sand replenished.

This photo, taken a few days after Sandy, in roughly the same location as the one above, shows how the storm had scoured the sand away, leaving the rip-rap exposed and the prom somewhat in disarray.

The end of the promenade provides access to the "wild" beach.

One still finds odds bits of storm debris.  This was part of a deck from someone's house.

The small observation platform survived.  This structure provides a shady perch for birdwatchers.

The north end of Brigantine is part of a wild life refuge.  You can read about that aspect here.

Neon green sea weed.  Mermaid's hair?  I'm not sure.

This one I recognize:  bladderwrack.  Nature's bubble wrap.

Just a few fishermen in beach buggies this day.

I encountered this odd totem.  Who constructed it and its meaning are mysteries.

An old gum shoe, a brick, a shotgun shell casing propped up on a block of  flotation foam with accompanying line, wood and plastic pipe.  Most unusual.

The gloved hand reaching towards Heaven reminds me in a vague sort of way of work by the sculptor Carl Milles.

Milles' The Hand of God.

Another totem.  This tree or one just like it was here two years ago.  Either Sandy spared the original or its perpetrators are persistent enough to erect replacements.  A crispy dead Christmas tree complete with a cross on top.  Are odd beach rituals conducted here or is this a way for surf fishermen to mark the location of a favorite fishing hole?

Apparently Sandy couldn't be bothered to remove the stumpy remains of the old jetty when deliciously tempting beach houses were on offer.

This fencing, running from the dunes to the surf beyond the low tide line is new and different.

The State is getting a bit more attentive to the needs of beach-nesting birds.

Juicy looking clouds were forming as the day wore on but the sea breeze kept them more or less over the mainland until sunset.

As we near the end of the island one can see uninhabited  Pullen Island on the other side of the inlet.  One can see fresh vehicle tracks in spite of the fencing.  Perhaps a fish and wildlife agent was checking up on the State's dwindling supply of Piping Plovers.

Another view of Pullen Island across the north end sands.  We used to beach boats and picnic there before the wildlife  restrictions were put in place.

It was too hazy to see the southern end of Long Beach Island.  On a clear day one can see Holgate and Beach Haven.

The breaking waves mark the location of the bar in the unmaintained Brigantine inlet.

It's very restful.  We didn't see another person north of the fence.

Walking back we encountered a kite boarder.

As we exited the wild beach I noticed this enclosure.  At first I thought it was a holding pen for wayward plastic Adirondack chairs.  Further investigating revealed that this is a "dog park".  The chairs are provided for dog owners who apparently are the dog equivalent of parents who want their kids to get exercise but don't particularly want to be engaged in the process.  And so with that observation, to home and to a nice cold beer.

 

So much fun, we'll DO it again.

Another event which falls under the DO/AC umbrella is the annual Atlantic City air show.  This usually takes place in August but this year the organizers bumped it up to the last week in June, for reasons which escape me, and so I was around to see it.  It's just my luck that this year is also the one where our Congress has decided that sequestration is better than compromise and so the Navy Blue Angles and the other service demonstration squadrons such as the Air Force Thunderbirds were absent from this year's program.  The one semi-modern jet which did participate was a privately owner Soviet era MiG.  That said the organizers promised P-51 Mustangs, Supermarine Spitfires and a host of aerobatic planes.  Not wanting to buck the traffic in AC and suspecting that one could watch from the south end of Brigantine, we packed the station wagon full of beach chairs and visiting relatives and headed for the rock jetty at the south end of the island.

The view from the south end of Brigantine towards Atlantic City .  The intervening water between the two barrier islands is Absecon inlet.

We arrived early to get good spots on the jetty but there's always some interesting traffic in the inlet.  Here we see the stern trawler Michael Jr. heading out to sea.  The concrete uprights seen just in front of the seawall are the supports for what's left of the inlet section of the boardwall

Looking to the southwest we see the causeway bridge which connects Brigantine to the rest of the world.  The dredge has been moved closer to the bridge this summer to deal with the sand deposited by last year's hurricane.

Zooming in on the dredge.  Don't know if I'd want to engage in stand-up paddle boarding that close or not.

The Absecon lighthouse was once the tallest structure in AC!

It's show time.  I was hoping that the planes would do more flying over Brigantine (there was a restriction on kite flying from Brigantine to Longport that day) and they did so toward the end of the show, but mainly they performed over the casinos on the Atlantic City side. 

I quickly discovered the limtations of a hand held "point and shoot" digital camera--lots of pix with either vapour trails,

or empty sky!

Well, if you botch a shot of the planes there's always interesting boat traffic!

Things got a little better as I experimented with the camera.  I think this is a pair of T-6 Texans but I can't be certain.  There was a radio station broadcasting the show but we didn't think to pack the radio.

How'd you like to casually glance out your condo window while having breakfast coffee some morning and see a MiG fly by?!

Chopper 10 from the local tv affiliate had to nose in for a closer view.  They were relatively easy to photograph compared to the war birds.  The building is the Revel Casino

For God's sakes man, pull out!  The condo owners must have had a wonderful view.

There was a lull in the airplane action but the dredge supply ship Candace helped relieve the monotony.  The low, red roofed building behind Candace is the Coast Guard station on Clam Creek.  Clam Creek was at one time the home of the old Evening Star Yacht Club which hosted Moth Boat Fleet Nr 1.  The old ESYC building lives on as Kammerman's Marina.

I think Olivia is also a dredge support vessel.

By this time a chop, driven by the afternoon sea breeze, was building.

The local tow company was having a busy day.

As was the Geico Insurance Company's sponsored speed boat.

To me this fisherman is being a bit foolhardy.  Along with fishhooks and other misc. fishing gear plus rocks to potentially tangle with, an eight knot currant runs through this inlet ( I couldn't swim against it--I doubt if Michael Phelps could swim against it).  The bay behind the Brigantine bridge is called "Mankiller" Bay for a reason.

Meanwhile, the next flight of planes arrived and I managed to get this group of pix while they performed a series of loops.

Here perhaps is my best shot of the afternoon. This group did fly directly at us and if it had been a strafing run we would have all been dead meat in our beach chairs.  Nothing quite like a squadron of vintage war birds diving down on you at 400+ knots.  A good day out!  Maybe next year we'll wander over to AC to watch but it sure was relaxing to laze away the day on the rocks!