Early this morning as I walked the dogs by Newport (RI) harbor, I was struck by how empty of boats it is. It\u2019s the middle of June and by now the harbor should be full of mainly sailboats, and the docks along the waterfront should be jam-packed with large motor yachts and the 12-Meter fleet. So, where are they all? The word is that many local boats just haven\u2019t been launched yet and boats coming in from the south and the Caribbean simply aren\u2019t coming. The forces at work all around us\u2014Covid-19, massive unemployment, economic recession, businesses either shuttered or just re-opening, social and racial strife\u2014all of these are conspiring to create a country with three reefs tied in and a backwinded headsail. Like it or not, we\u2019re hove to.<\/p>\n
The coronavirus that caused all of the ill winds is still with us and in some regions cases appear to be increasing while in others it appears to be on the wane. It\u2019s kind of like we are seeing a few small patches of blue through the clouds and feeling the wind abate a little.\u00a0 According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation\u00a0 (University of Washington), rates of infections and deaths from the virus are down from the peak and trending positively. Maybe it\u2019s time to shake out a reef and trim the headsail for sailing again? Maybe it\u2019s time to get our boats in the water and ready for sailing? Maybe it is time to head off for a long-weekend cruise just to get away and back to the sailing life. I certainly hope so. I\u2019d love to see Newport harbor full this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early this morning as I walked the dogs by Newport (RI) harbor, I was struck by how empty of boats it is. It\u2019s the middle of June and by now the harbor should be full of mainly sailboats, and the docks along the waterfront should be jam-packed with large motor yachts and the 12-Meter fleet. So, where are they all? The word is that many local boats just haven\u2019t been launched yet and boats coming in from the south and the Caribbean simply aren\u2019t coming. The forces at work all around us\u2014Covid-19, massive unemployment, economic recession, businesses either shuttered or just re-opening, social and racial strife\u2014all of these are conspiring to create a country with three reefs tied in and a backwinded headsail. Like it or not, we\u2019re hove to. The coronavirus that caused all of the ill winds is still with us and in some regions cases appear to be increasing while in others it appears to be on the wane. It\u2019s kind of like we are seeing a few small patches of blue through the clouds and feeling the wind abate a little.\u00a0 According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation\u00a0 (University of Washington), rates of infections …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":35192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1875],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35205,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204\/revisions\/35205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}