Sancomb & Company
Mega Seconds
"Adventurer" at the Start of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race
By my calculation as of November 5, 2007 4:16:15 pm
I have been alive:
Several of those seconds have been more memorable than others.
Austin-Healy 3000 - 8 Adventure
Recently we had a significant snow, followed by a period of warm weather,
resulting in slushy roads. I had picked up a coffee at Dunkin Donuts
and was making my way back on to the street when the rear end of my car slid
just a bit. I was immediately flashed back to a moment sometime in the
middle of my college years in the early '60s.
There is really only one sports car worth talking about, The Austin-Healy 3000 - 8, or so I thought in those years. I was absolutely in love with this sleek, low slung beauty. So much so that I polished up my nerve one day and made my way to the small dealership in Burlington, VT. Much to my surprise, and probably as much for his pleasure as to make an unlikely sale, the young Tab-Hunter-like salesman offered me a test ride. Soon we were sitting in this baby, so low in fact that this car by reputation could not drive over a Dixie Cup with out touching it. The Abarth mufflers were tuned to a sound that speaks to the soul and added yet another dimension to the joy of the experience.
In this car, when you shift from first to second, the feeling of acceleration is just as if you were in first all over again. We were on a winding slushy street, the driver shifted as we went 'round a curve in the road, the rear end fishtailed just a bit, giving a thrill that is burned in my memory like precious few; even after all these years.
Some years ago, a friend who is a videographer, asked me to be his assistant while he filmed The Great Connecticut Traditional Jazz Festival. Toward the end of the day, a significant number of the musicians assembled on the large main stage for a world class jam. Near the edge of the stage where we were filming, seated immediately beside each other, were four contrabass saxophones. On several occasions, for just a few seconds, they hit a deep resonating chord in harmony that is eternally burned in the pleasure center of my brain. Once in a great while I will hear something that reminds me of that cherished few seconds, but nothing since has replaced it as a "Mega Second".
Having done some recent research to identify the correct name of the instrument, it is hard for me to believe that I was hearing a significant percentage of the instruments in the world that can make this incredible sound; the contrabass saxophone. Is that conceivable?
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/cbsax.html
The contrabass sax must be one of the physically largest woodwind instruments around. The range is down to low concert Db, an octave below the baritone sax. Two octaves below the alto. This may not be as low as the BBb contrabass sarussophone, or the contrabassoon, but with the wide saxophone bore, this beast must surely outweigh them. Paul Cohen, noted musician, instrument collector, and columnist for the Saxophone Journal, thinks that there are about 15 of the old originals still in existence, worldwide (not counting the model now in production by Orsi/LA Sax, or the Eb contrabass tubax by Benedikt Eppelsheim). He plays a vintage Buffet, and can be heard on his CD "Vintage Saxophones Revisited." Evette made about 25 contras, between 1900 and 1925, of which 8 or 9 are believed still "alive." The remaining horns were made by Kohlert and Orsi.
October 2000, The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, and I had managed to get myself a berth as a crew of "Adventurer", a 65' John Alden designed and fully restored wooden schooner. As I have described it; "like sailing in a fine china cabinet", wood all around, lighted by paraffin, heated by coal. How lucky can a boy be?
We were close hauled, hard on a generous wind, on a port tack. Adventurer was, "on her lines", and sailing with the sea just at her gunnel. I was standing at the starboard quarter hanging onto the running back stay. The exhilaration was palpable; then a puff of wind drove us just a bit harder, just a bit deeper, forcing the gunnel down and allowing just a small amount of sea aboard. Like Mother Ocean's tears of joy, it trickled down the deck to the nearest scupper and returned from whence it had come.
Precious seconds.
"Adventurer" on an opposite tack, but very close to what is described above.