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Setting the stage

2019, early spring, only a few months after my official retirement from an auto service business that lasted 38 plus years. I’m back to rediscovering what I enjoyed about sailing in the early 80’s. Then, I had just started my auto service business and was just getting interested in cycling, but sailing was taking a foothold. Back then I was a busy guy, always trying new things and taking them to the furthest I could. Now, I’m trying to decide what life will be like not having to work 50 plus hours a week and squeezing a ton of other activities in at the same time. 

My neglected boat, a Cape Dory 22D, bought new in 1983 was still in my possession. I tried to take good care of it over the years I wasn’t using it, but years take their tolls especially when something needs to be stored outside all year in Minnesota. 

My goal was to seriously refresh Chalice in the early spring while still sitting on land at the Watergate Marina in St Paul on the Mississippi River. Needless to say, there was plenty to do. The boat isn’t very big, thankfully, so bringing it back to life was hard and time consuming but not terribly so. Even at that I wasn’t ready to drop the boat in until the end of June. I knew going into this summer I would not have a lot of time to spend sailing but my goal was to recommit, make the boat sailable and put it back into a slip at the Pepin Marina in Pepin Wisconsin, it’s past home. 

I was still involved in the last year of the Blaine Velodrome and my bike race “career” and planning to race in Manchester at Worlds Masters Track Championships, not knowing if that would be my last “Worlds” ever, so I knew my time on the boat would be limited. 

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