I stopped in at the West Marine store here on the way home from work tonight, having asked them to hold 15 copies of SpinSheet for me–for distribution to the Scouts. I spoke with the Assistant Manager about our ship, and he noted he had been a Sea Scout sailing on the Potomac in the ’60’s, along with Stephen Alexander, the boat title/registration expert I talked to the other day. When I saw a chart on the wall I asked if they ever have any old, beat up charts they would dispose of, as I’m looking for one to use in teaching the kids navigation. He mentioned he had one at home, then went through the rolled charts and selected an old one from another part of the country, not likely to be sold anytime soon, wrote it off, and gave it to us.
I opened my email to find a message from Tom Finn, who told me that the soonest he would be able to sail the boat down would be November 3, since he has marathon training every weekend until then. I don’t have a lot of hope that we’ll be able to sail her down before the weather changes. Not that I’m going to give up trying. I would guess Nov. 3 would be about the last weekend we would want to try it.