I’d had to park in the lee of an overpass to get out of the wind. Even then it had taken me nearly a half hour just to step the mast and adjust the rigging. A screwdriver passed through the hole in the center of the turnbuckles helped in tightening the shrouds, as well as the fore and aft stays.
I’d slid the mainsail in its track on the back of the mast, and onto the boom. Passed the mainsheet through its blocks, and tossed the main halyard inside the open window until I was ready to hoist the main aloft. Once I had it rigged, I climbed in the car, hoisted the main, and hauled her in tight.
Ready at last, I started the car and eased it out to the edge of the roadway. The drivers of cars zipping past looked at me strangely, but I was patient and waited for a good opening.
Holy smokes, when I pulled out onto the road, the wind caught me, and I had to ease the main off and quickly, but now man I was on the move.
I wasn’t sure at first if it was a siren, or the wind whistling through the rigging, but I had just gotten settled into the routine when I looked into my rear view mirror. The question was answered, it was the siren of a highway patrol car.
It was scary as I started to push the brake pedal. I thought at first I might broach, so reluctantly I let the mainsheet out as far as I could to luff the mainsail. After I stopped the car I cleated the line off on my door mirror, and finally pulled on the emergency brake handle. The highway patrolman was just shaking his head when he walked up to the open window of the driver’s side door of my small Volkswagon.
He had his citation book in one hand and a pen in the other, he was ready to write, he just didn’t know what to write as yet. He started with the usual questions, you know, the ritual of a valid drivers license, name of my insurance company, etc. Each question and answer had to be repeated on more than one occasion because of the noise from the flapping mainsail. When he asked me to step out of the car, there was some difficulty, I had to drop the main first. To do this I had to open the door slightly to ease the main halyard off. When I did this the main came flying down and, you guessed it, covered the top of the car — and the highway patrolman. When he had escaped from under the sail, picked his hat up out of the dirt nearby, dusted it off, he then summoned me out of, and away from the contraption before him. I don’t recall him being too happy at the time.
However, now, on this day in court, the judge was in the process of seeing my Prairie schooner landlocked in the backyard, never to sail again.
“Mr. Boone let me be sure I understand the arresting officers concerns as to why he wrote this traffic citation. It seems he stopped you for sailing your Volkswagon on the freeway?”
“I’m not guilty of the violation as it is written your Honor, and I wasn’t posing any danger to anyone your Honor.”
“Mr. Boone, I am quite familiar with sailing, explain how and why you did this.”
“Well, your Honor, it happened like this. I was driving to work one morning, and for some reason it sounded extra quiet, yet I was making really good time. The gas gauge wasn’t dropping at all, So, out of curiosity, I stopped on the side of the highway for a moment and opened the door. The wind was right off my stern, and when I opened the door the wind nearly tore it off. It dawned on me that I could sail this car as fast as I could drive it under power.”
“I know it sounds strange, but sailors will try unusual rigs just to see how they handle, your Honor.”
He smiled slightly, he tried not to, but he did just the same. Then he said. “Explain how you rigged her.”
I knew then that he really did know about boats because he referred to my sailing car as ‘Her.’
“Yessir. I’d stepped the mast of my small sailboat, uh . . It’s similar to the comet class, into a length of aluminum pipe which I had fastened to a four by six mounted sideways on top of my front bumper of my Volkswagon. The upper shrouds were actually clothes line wire going to each side of the bumper. I made the forestay out of the same kind of wire, but I fastened it to a short two by four, which I’d through bolted to the four by six. This was my bowsprit, and it stuck out from the front of the four by six. The backstay still needs some improvement. Maybe I’ll have to add a boomkin, anyway the backstay I was using at the time ran down to my rear bumper.
I explained to his Honor that with the backstay mounted this way, I couldn’t tack the rig. The backstay was in the way of the boom, and restricted me to a beam reach, or running downwind.
The mainsheet ran down to a makeshift traveler made from one of those rental luggage carriers, across the top of the car/ and fastened just aft of the rear door frame posts. There was a small block mounted in the center, then the line passed outboard to another block then to my window mirror as a cleat. “I might actually have to put a small cleat near this spot, your Honor.”
When I’d finished my explanation, the judge was silent for a moment, or two. I thought he was counting up the amount of the fine I’d have to pay.
Then he said, “Mr. Boone, the traffic violation code number 21710 basically refers to coasting your car out of gear.”
“Yessir, but I wasn’t coasting out of gear. I had the car in high gear, but I was holding the clutch pedal down.”
“If you weren’t coasting with the car out of gear, what would you call it?
“Motorsailing, your Honor.”
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