Neither snow nor sleet nor dark of night...

[rbgarr]

deters my postmistress from her sense of friendly service:

I was out taking a walk along the waterfront in the cool evening air and noticed that she was stringing lights on the Christmas tree in her front parlor. I knocked on the window and gave her a thumbs up. She waved back and came to the door to wish me a Merry Christmas.

She then said "I know how much you like reading Woodenboat and I noticed that you didn't get your mail yesterday morning. Would you like to have it?"

"Sure!" I said.

We walked next door where she unlocked the Post Office and retrieved it from our mailbox (since I didn't have the key).

Thus, #194 will be in my stocking in the morning and it will be a special one indeed.

[Concordia...41]

Now that is service! :)

[Canoeyawl]

That is life in Maine!

[Hughman]

Merry Christmas to you guys! :)

[S.V. Airlie]

I love small towns.. Yup.. that is service. When I worked running people's stores so they could take a vacation, I'd call up the post mistress and ask her to put my mail on my doorstep as I would not make it to my po box before closing.. Granted, it was only one house down but she always did drop my mail off on her way home..
Yup.. small towns...

[Old Sailor]

One day meeting the carrier at my mailbox he commented that my SS check wasn't there. He went back to the PO and found it and delivered it to me 1/2 hr. later.
Old Sailor

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Didn't even bother to check the mail yesterday Just went down when I read this thread and YUP :D there it was waiting like a christmas present. :D

Hey Jamie there is a good looking motor boat on the cover from your current ;) home waters. "Foto" Out of Oxford MD

[bamamick]

Even though our town has tripled in size since we moved here 19 years ago we could still have that kind of thing happen. Wonderful.

Mickey Lake

[S.V. Airlie]

Know the boat well Joe. Okay, terrible spelling but old boat photographer owned her.. Rosenfeld.. Is that right? Hence the name...
At Cuts and Case.. owned by the old man, if he is still alive. Has not been well for a few years.

Have not gotten my latest issue yet. Guess I'm being ignored. Even sent Scot a Christmas card and what do I get, umm.. no mag... Bummer... LOL

[Canoeyawl]

I had a memorable cocktail hour aboard Foto with the old man a few years back…

[S.V. Airlie]

Quite a character.. Last I heard, he was driving around with one leg in his golf cart yelling at anyone in sight... I like(ed) him.. although a bit like French bread.. crusty on the outside. LOL

[Wild Wassa]

Merry Christmas to all Forumites.

It is quite strange how happy you can make somebody by just saying Merry Christmas.

I have noticed that if you say it to complete strangers, approaching Christmas, like I did when Christmas shopping a few days ago, the complete stranger smiles and says, "Merry Christmas," back to you.

I have also noticed that when you say Merry Christmas to somebody at other times of the year, they look at you like you are a complete idiot ...

Anyway enjoy the rest of the holidays.

Warren.

[Rick Starr]

LOL!

Best wishes to you too, Warren, and all the WoodenBoat community too.

[Don Z.]

Mine finally arrived yesterday... But I'm not the only one who complains about the Annapolis post office, so...

One small, minor quibble: Page 61, Cappriccio (US-122). Now, I can't say I know a lot about this Six, but I do know a bit about the "...similar Eight-Meter, OCATAVIO...".

We can start by saying it's not OCTAVIO, it's Octavia. Her original sail number was KC-30. She went on to win the 8mR Worlds in Toronto. Designed by Bruce Kirby, both Capriccio and Octavia were design studies for the 12mR Canada II.

The article (and photo) notes that "winged keels were popular then". Um... sort of. Wings work well on metre boats because maximum draft is penalized by the rule. This is still true, but the difference between a wing that works well and one that slows the boat down is a LOT of research/testing, and this is expensive. Of course, a lot of research and testing were done in that time period, something about a silver mug and the Indian Ocean. So to that we owe a lot of knowlege of wings, and the 2.4mR class.

The Kirby boats (Cappricio, Octavia, Canada II) were light air boats, which would have done well in Newport, or Toronto, but not so well in Freemantle. Curiously, while Canada II did not do well in the cup races, she regularly out-performs Stars and Stripes(US-55) in her current home in the Caribbean. So much of the International Rule is weather dependent. That was also one of the lessons learned by Liberty(US-40) in 1983, but that lesson was not as sexy as the wings...

Octavia(KC-30) was sold by its Canadian Syndicate first to Rochester, NY (and given the sail number USA-37), and then sold to a fellow in Michigan, who renamed the boat Les You Know. I found her on the UP in 2003, and have been working on her (despite some deployments) since. Les You Know was a play on the Les Cheneaux Islands where the owner liked to sail, but these islands are not well known to me. My wife and I discussed going back to Octavia, but for various other reasons beyond the scope of this discussion, settled on Trakehner. I still have a Hood main and jib, from some time in the mid '80s (could be original?) with KC-30 still applied.

It's a neat boat. I really need some time off to focus on it...

[bamamick]

:)

Mickey Lake