Waterfront Winterization: Pulling out the boat lift on September 22, 2016.
There comes a time each autumn when summer has faded and winter is whispering over the waves. Or when work, travel, something eclipses the languid stretch of fall boating and watersports. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later, and as inevitable and bittersweet as fall foliage, waterfront winterization is an annual ritual that braces us practically and emotionally for the North Country’s frosty November through February.
The photo above chronicles the slow process of dragging the boat lift ashore. We use an electric winch and plenty of manpower. The aluminum dock is next. Rolling it in is the easy part. Lifting it up the stone terracing to higher ground is our version of crossfit.
Special thanks to Doug Decker, Erick Decker, Matt Smith, Alex Shepard, and Jeff Bigelow for making today’s waterfront winterization the smoothest and most efficient to date.
Boats on the Hard
Waterfront Winterization: Pulling the ski boat on September 21, 2016.
Usually in October, we haul Errant, our 31′ sailboat and Racy Rosslyn, our ski boat. This year we had to advance our haul dates to accommodate a busy fall schedule. In the photo above Racy Rosslyn is being towed away for winterization and storage.
Waterfront Winterization 2016: Errant is on the hard at a nearby shipyard.
Rosslyn Boathouse, Circa 1907 (Source: vintage postcard with note)
It’s time travel Tuesday! Gazing through the time-hazed patina of this vintage postcard I’m unable to resist the seductive pull of bygone days. Whoosh!
I tumble backward through a sepia wormhole, settling into the first decade of the 20th century. It’s 1907 according to the postal stamp on the rear of this postcard.
Back of Rosslyn Boathouse Postcard
Eleven decades ago a man rowed a boat past Rosslyn’s boathouse, from north to south, through waves larger than ripples and smaller than white caps. It was a sunny day in mid-to-late summer, judging by the shoreline water level. A photographer, hooded beneath a dark cloth focusing hood, leans over behind his wooden tripod, adjusting pleated leather bellows, focus, framing. And just as the rower slumps slightly, pausing to catch his breath, the shutter clicks and the moment is captured.
Perhaps this is the photographer who memorialized Rosslyn boathouse more than a century ago?
Albumen print of a photographer with Conley Folding Camera circa 1900. (Source: Antique and Classic Cameras)
There’s so much to admire in this photograph-turned-postcard. Rosslyn boathouse stands plumb, level, and proud. Probably almost two decades had elapsed since her construction, but she looks like an unrumpled debutante. In fact, aside from the pier, coal bin, and gangway, Rosslyn boathouse looks almost identical today. Remarkable for a structure perched in the flood zone, ice flow zone, etc.
I’m also fond of the sailboat drifting just south of Rosslyn boathouse. Raised a sailor, one my greatest joys in recent years has been owning and sailing a 31′ sloop named Errant that spends the summer moored just slightly north of its forebear recorded in this photo.
Although the pier and the massive coal bin in front of the boathouse are no longer there, they offer a nod to Samuel Keyser‘s stately ship, the Kestrel, for many summers associated with Rosslyn boathouse.
Kestrel at Rosslyn boathouse in Essex, NY
Other intriguing details in this 1907 photo postcard of Rosslyn boathouse include the large white sign mounted on the shore north of the boathouse (what important message adorned this billboard?); the presence of a bathhouse upslope and north of the boathouse (today known as the Green Frog and located on Whallons Bay); and the slightly smudged marginalia referring to a small white skiff pulled ashore slightly south of the boathouse (what is the back story?).
This faded photograph kindles nostalgia and wonder, revealing a glimpse into the history of Rosslyn boathouse while dangling further mysteries to compell me deeper into the narrative of our home. Kindred sleuths are welcome!
