I am pretty sure that our harbor master, John Crocker, will not be writing to complain about how Tisbury dinghy owners responded to an email from Kim Elias. So I am writing (without his knowledge) on his behalf.

Sent to all dinghy owners on record, Kim’s email asked that all dinghy owners in Tashmoo and Owen Park remove their dinghies by 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 21, so they could haul the floats in anticipation of Hurricane Henri. My husband and I went down to Tashmoo on Saturday morning to take our dinghy off the beach and found John and his able crew of young assistants taking the dinghy dock apart and hauling it, as Kim had said they would be doing. Their job had been delayed and complicated by the fact that when they had arrived that morning, there were still 42 (!!) dinghies on the dock. Before they could work on hauling the dock, they had to move all of those dinghies themselves. That delayed their work and meant that they were doing the dismantling when the tide was lower, making the job more difficult.

I checked, and most of those dinghies had Tisbury dinghy stickers on them, so the owners would have received the email.

Come on, Tisbury boat owners, let’s not make our harbor master’s job harder than it needs to be. Let’s try to help him out as he works to keep us and our vessels safe.

Kate Shands

Vineyard Haven