WindCheck Magazine Brrrrrr….. - WindCheck Magazine

OK, call me whatever but this month’s cover shot looks chilly! People love to complain about how we don’t have a spring anymore. “Goes from cold to 90s overnight!” is the refrain. Well first of all, I don’t think that’s true. We have lovely springs of 45-65 degrees with a fair amount of rain…that’s what spring is supposed to be! Seventy is a bonus, and 75-degree days mean you are late in getting the boat in the water. (This comes from a guy who runs a boat show first weekend in May, so maybe I’m a touch biased.) But this photo by our frequent cover shot artist Rick Bannerot, which was taken at a very fall-like event in Stamford a few weeks ago, definitely reminded me that my blood takes a long while to thicken up. That’s why my annual whine comes out when it seems to go from swimming weather to “Sorry, the docks are pulled” and then in a blink, “Holy crap, does that say 36°!?!?” when I get in the car to go sail some fall regatta. It seems to happen way too quickly.

My wife says the solution is in the basement. In that giant bag of stuff. “What? Which bag?” “That bag…the one you take with you on Sundays to go sailing in the winter.” “But that’s for frostbiting!” (exasperated sigh…) “Yesssss, but you don’t have to wear all of it to rake leaves…just a layer or two…followed by muttered words… “Blockhead, dope.” Something else undecipherable…

This kind of conversation doesn’t happen to rough, tough offshore types like the ones Coop writes about; like this month’s reminder featuring Blondie Hasler on page 53. Or even our own Barrister on page 39, trying to make us feel better by divulging a mishap that resulted in an October swim in Newport Harbor. John actually only heightened my sense that my blood doesn’t thicken as quickly as it should. But he does end with encouraging words. So I am going to try and remember that shifting seasonal gears requires action beyond putting away the shorts and pulling out some capilene.

I will defend our team here at WindCheck though. Putting together our annual Holiday Gift Guide, which starts way before Halloween when even the most crass marketer hasn’t yet dared to run Christmas spots, is truly painful. Maybe not Southern Ocean for 40 days kind of painful, but it’s still hard, mostly because it’s pretty far in advance of the season. I know that for the Blondie Haslers of the retail world our efforts are like a Stratford Shoal overnight compared to a transatlantic. But we are amateurs at this and we try to find it useful and satisfying because we do try and pick cool, unusual stuff and it’s also fun to work with our advertisers to pick out interesting things, too. But we ultimately don’t get to see the results of our recommendations like we often do with our other editorial. We can only imagine the pleasure your in-laws got from those salt and pepper grinders in the shape of winches. “Come on now…who wouldn’t love those?” we tell ourselves. So, if you find some value in this year’s Guide, please do let Zep@windcheckmagazine.com know! Your appreciation will help him recover from his own “Southern Ocean passage.”