Shrink Wrap Disappears

A head peeked out of a hole in the shrink wrapped boat.  I stared at the round smiling face framed in the white plastic.

                “Spring is definitely here,” I replied.  “Taking off the shrink wrap and getting your boat ready?”

                “Yep,” he replied ducking back inside the boat.

                I thought of our sailboat when we labored intensely to get her ready to pull for the winter – no shrink wrap back then.  We placed our sailboat on a cradle in our yard.   My husband devised a method to remove the mast so she would fit in the boatlift at the local marina and not knock down wires as they drove her to our home.  It was a fourteen foot 2X4 with a “u” at the end to catch the mast when it was lowered by the forestay and a 4X4.  Then the mast was carried off the boat, pier, and placed on the lawn.

                Next, he motored the sailboat, without a mast, to the boatyard.  They lifted her out of the water and as he drove the lift to our home to place her in the waiting cradle, she gently swayed in the straps. However, as the marine driver pulled into our yard, the top of the sailboat did not clear a sagging electric wire.  They stopped.  Our sailboat swayed, waiting.

                “Got a problem,” the marine driver yelled.

                “Wait.  I have the answer, “my husband said, running for the fourteen foot 2X4 with the “u”.

                Standing next to the rig, the man held the 2X4 with the “u” and raised the wire just as a yellow BGE truck with flashing lights came down the street and stopped.  No one moved.  The rig sat still.  The lifted wire hung in the 2X4.  The sailboat stopped swaying.  The electric company’s employee got out and ran to the marine operator and asked, “When are you going to move my boat?”