Today was spring cleanup day at the yacht club. I spent a good part of the morning directing volunteers to clean up, rig, scrub, and take inventory on the Lindsay Lord, the motorboat we use as the race committee boat for all the summer's regattas. It gets a lot of use: eight or more regattas over the course of the summer and fall, plus races three nights a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Different volunteers use it each time, and they have different levels of knowledge, skill, and neatness. So over the years a lot of junk has accumulated in the boat, and much of the equipment for running races: flags, shotgun shells, letters, signs, horns, etc. has disappeared or gotten run down.
I had a good team of helpers who scrubbed mildew and rewired a spotlight and set up and screwed in flagpoles. I always forget how hard it is to manage volunteers, to keep everyone informed and equipped to do a job, to let them be engaged and feel like they can take initiative to solve problems while still monitoring to make sure I know what's going on. I had a mathematician and a psychiatrist, a stockbroker and a CFO, an account manager for a software company and an employee benefits expert, all scrubbing or wiring or counting or hauling gear around. After a few hours, as my volunteers drifted away or were immersed in their projects and I'd finished scrubbing the mildew off the interior ceiling of the boat, I had a little time on my hands. I decided to sand down the teak boards that slide in and cover the companionway. They're old and tired, the brown wood fading to a patchy yellow gray.
I don't do it much, but there's something that I've always loved about sanding wood. I like the repetitive back and forth, feeling the slight scrape beneath my fingers. I like seeing the soft tracks that the sandpaper leaves in the wood, a dusty faded trail. I like touching the wood and feeling its texture, the rough spots that you haven't gotten to and the smooth powdery feel where you have already been. The wood dust on your fingers and even the way it tickles your nose a bit. When I was a little girl I used to sit on the steps of my grandfather's workshop with a scrap of wood from his shop and some sandpaper wrapped around a block, and I would sand and sand and sand. First using the coarse grit, and then a finer grit, and then something very fine, a 220 or a 320 or a 400. I could do that for hours, daydreaming and then coming back to the present and rubbing my hands on the softness I created. When I was a teenager my dad gave me his Laser, and it had a wooden daggerboard and rudder and toe rails. I remember a winter doing brightwork, sanding those down into perfect, smooth blades, and then watching how the dull wood came to life when you applied the first coat of varnish.
It started to rain while I was sanding so I moved the project into the steward's shed. One of my volunteers showed up with a hand sander, and the two of us worked side by side -- her with a tool, me with the sandpaper folded into a small square and held in my fingers. I like the way the sandpaper gets clogged up and stops working, and you have to twist it around and find a fresh patch of paper. I like doing work that has such a tangible result. I like standing beside someone, without talking, each of you immersed in a task. I like being in a shed surrounded by cans of paint and varnish, boat batteries, WD-40, bilge cleaner, epoxy, and lifejackets. It's going to rain for a few days but when it gets sunny and dry I'm going to go over there and varnish those boards. It puts me in a really good mood, taking care of a boat.
I just love the way you write about all the little things that make sailing so satisfying. Blazer buttons. Sanding wood. Terrific stuff.
Posted by: Tillerman | May 01, 2005 at 06:33 PM