From the Wheelhouse Moving!

Just to let my readers know, my blog has been brought in-house at Safe/Sea, as we've totally revamped our site to support blogging and interactivity. Here's the new direct url:

http://www.safesea.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=2008

Or, just go to www.safesea.com and click my ugly mug on the homepage, or select my blog from the Blogs menu item. Lots of my co-boatdrivers will be getting into the blogosphere this year as well, so there will be lots of content to choose from on the new site as we ramp up before spring hits and the boatdriving begins.

Hopefully, I'll be importing all of my 2008 posts to the new site in the next month or so; in the meantime, they'll remain here.

As you can probably tell by the dearth of posts, the towing & salvage season has come to a halt here in the northeast. Big plans are afoot for my blog next season, and I will periodically update this page through the winter as relevant events dictate.

Thanks very much to all my readers over the summer, there will be more not-so-thrilling adventures come spring!

25' Shamrock to Dutch Harbor

Disabled 2NM south of Beavertail.

42' Ketch to Newport

This was my sole job on Sunday, a nicely preserved 1927 vintage ketch
that lost power off Point Judith. It was grey and rainy, but about as
calm as it gets in Rhode Island Sound in October.

Dreary weather, slow September

Sorry for the dearth of posts since early this month, but, frankly, there hasn't been much happening of much import. To summarize, I've handled 11 operations since my last post of the 9th, and all were of the routine variety. Most of the jobs in September cluster heavily around the weekends, and our last two weekends have been total rain-outs. Even the storms have been lackluster. This weekend holds some hope, though, as we have a nice sunny forecast, albeit a little chilly.

Most of my recent time has been spent working on the FileMaker database that we use to run our business, making upgrades and adding features. Much of my time now will be spent doing that kind of work, as the on-the-water stuff slows down. Most boaters don't actually come out of the water until November here in RI, so nice weather can produce some flurries of activity, which I will post should they occur.

32' O'Day to Dutch Harbor

Guaranteed to happen when there's a nasty squall line about to hit.

TS Hanna a bust in RI

Tropical Storm Hanna turned out to be a non-event here in Rhode Island. We were fully staffed and crewed in anticipation of wind speeds of up to 50 mph, but we didn't see anything in excess 0f 35-40 from the southeast. The prevailing winds here come from the south, so most mooring fields and anchorages are fairly well prepared for winds from that direction. Capt. Doug reports from Block Island that the airport there recorded only a couple of gusts around 40, so not much went on out there, either.

The storm has continued on toward the Canadian Maritimes, and the weather here in Narragansett Bay is crystal clear and sunny with about 12-15 knots of wind from the WNW. I doubt there will be much boating action today, as most boaters will be stowing the extra lines and fenders they deployed yesterday, and it is the first week of NFL regular season action.