Originally Posted by barry12345

That is about seven miles further east than Port Hope. Unless there have been massive improvements and there may have been. Stay out of there in bad weather conditions. If you have to choose a place and have the time. Port Hope was really a good place by comparison in bad weather.

I did not want to drone on earlier but there was more to the alberg story that time. Got a call early in the following week from one of the guys.

Said him and his son had gone out to clean the boat up a bit one evening. We used to anchor our boats out in the harbour with larger permanent concrete weights connected to floats. No dockside mooring was used although the concrete sidewalls were in great shape.

Historically it was the home of eldorado a crown corporation uranium processing place beside the harbour. The harbour was dredged and the product went to the states during the war and well before the atomic bombs where dropped on Japan. This plant at one time dealt in radium for watch hands etc. So whatever the by products on the bottom of that harbour there. They were seriously needed that long ago time.

Well anyways back to the alberg. I got a call monday or tues or even wednesday as I do not remember at work. Could I get off as the alberg was sitting on the bottom of the harbour. I asked if it was sunk for certain and he verified part of the mast was sticking out as the boat had settled vertically on the bottom.

I remember thinking that this was just great. Since I worked in a town further away by the time I got there he had gotten a towtruck. Dove down and secured the pull and dragged the hull over to a sidewall.

The uranium plant lent us a moderate heavy lifter and we got the boat up to deck level and pumped it out. What a mess but the insurance company paid to recondition the boat and it went back into service. We felt his son being quite young had tampered with the head that was below the waterline when his dad was working somewhere else cleaning up and he missed the sons activity.

When we got the boat high and pumped out we had quite a discussion of who was going to call the owner. Neither of us where really wanting to but someone had to. How do you tell a guy we sank his boat and even if only submerged for as short a time as it was. Especially if he thinks you might have tried to kill him only a few days ago. The boat was was so dirty it was hard to imagine that it could be as bad .

I sailed my thunderbird out of Port Hope for several years.. We had quite a few characters in the club way back then. There was a cross section of individuals the likes of them probably not possible today. Many had obscure claims to fame so to speak. Enough in my opinion that someone in hindsight should have written a book. The dynamics of the group where highly unusual.

Incidentally his boat being sunk did not phase the owner of the alberg at all. I felt he was still recovering mentally from the interesting sail through the storm may have been the reason. Our little excusion really was more than he could manage mentally at the time.

I sailed my thunderbird out of that port for a few years. Eventually the media got hold of our various odd exploits. Actually part of the reason to suspend rescue runs is when I was involved in rescuing the concrete sidewalk as the media called the forty foot ferro cement sail boat.

If you have never tried to start a lister hand crank diesel like that ferro cement hull had in cold conditions you have never lived. The concept of using cement to build boats was pretty much new back then. I became the subject of poety in the media. They put spins on the story that in hindsite where hillarious. It did not help my cause the the boat had also been illegally taken it turned out. This episode occured very, very late in the year and the guy on the boat when I got there dissapeared fast once I got him ashore.

We used to have breakfast quite often on Farley Mowats old newfoundland schooner as kind of a regular thing. He wrote the well selling book the boat that would not float. Of course it was exagerated but there was more than a grain of truth in it as well.

Plus there was a major ongoing story about the converted into a sailboat from a german patrol vessel north sea trawler. One of our members owned. Complete with it's old mercedes diesel engine. Probably the original installed by the germans to patrol the fiords of norway as I think they confiscated the trawler early in the war.

More hilarious things happened about and with that boat and it's owner over time as any. It was almost endless events there so the media decided we were worth following. Now as I sail out at the cottage in our little albacore or even smaller planning inland scow. I ocasionally wonder about living through those many times and events.

At the same time realising this is brought forward in my memory. As the great sailing abilities and skill I had back then are now gone. I intuitvly know I am not making those small boats perform as good as I could at one time.The edge is just gone.

Racing as much as we did took away the pleasures of just plain pleasure sailing unfortunatly. I have always regretted that loss. The media put me on the front page for the last sailboat race I won. I guess I had become somewhat notorious by then.

I was not kidding when stating someone should have written a book. I have been a member of other yacht clubs but they were sterile compared to the events and episodes that occured at that small Port Hope club.

.I actually brought my first mercedes from a member and it was a nice fintail. There is another story there as well. The owner was far too wealthy for being a post office employee. He used to sail with me every wednesday afternoon if the weather was decent. I always took wednesday afternoon off work in the summer. His fairly large motor cruiser was built from all stainless steel. He was also well advanced in age. He made his money boot legging across lake ontario during prohibition I eventually found out and lived in Coburg.

If Kerry was not aware . Famous rich americans built mansions in Coburg. For years there was a ferry service across lake ontario terminating there. They commited their indescressions well out of americans view. Names you probably would still be familiar with if I could remember them. As the expression goes money has it's privlages I suppose.

Some of the ladies even had a few stableboys. Well my sailing wedneday afternoons friend had aquired one of those large mansions as when the boat service ceased running. They were white elephants and very large. I suspect built prior to income tax came into being as well. The first time I was at his home it staggered me.

It was too far a run around the lake by car on the poorer roads back then I suppose to continue using them by the americans. Over a few summers sailing together his whole story came out. For a postal clerk he had had an amazing life. Still just more or less typical of a member of that yacht club. Old George Pierce will have expired long ago now. So will the majority of the other menbers of my time by now. A mixture of people like that occuring is no longer probable today.