HOUSTON, WE HAVE POWER!!!!

SHIP'S LOG:

With the batteries in, the time has come to check out the systems. The good news is that as far as it can be told, everything powered by electricity works!!!!! The less-than-good news is that getting them to work was a bit of an electrical nightmare. The English have a rather strange concept of "an orderly electrical arrangement." It seems as though those who wired the boat originally were penalized if they made simple connections.There are at least three(3), count 'em THREE different grounds on the boat. You need a ground for electricity to flow but on ABISHAG , you have to decipher which ground is tied to which circuit! And none of them is particularly easy to get to in the first place. And it is not just a matter of following the wire as it dips and darts and snakes its way under, around and through every bulkhead, deck and overhead. Several more terminal blocks ( all corroded) were discovered. More switches that didn't quite work all the time were revealed. More wire that went no where and which was ultimately connected to air was uncovered. ( there is a special place in the hereafter for people who do wiring like this!) Of course this would have been a lot harder and much more difficult if all that excess and unnecessary wiring had not already been removed. To show you how bad it was, in a mass of cables running next to the engine, the electrician found five (5) feet of copper tubing that was connected to nothing at either end! Perhaps it was some kind of fuel return line or whatever, but it had been so wrapped by the wiring, that we didn't even know it existed. It is doubtful that the last owner knew and who knows how far back it goes.

I have a semi-firm date for the completion of the work. The yard should, SHOULD be finished by Wednesday next! That means all the DC electrics will be up and running; that the shore power hookup will be up to code; the bypass for the hole in the transmission will be in place, the temp gauge and tach will be functioning; and the wind speed indicator will indicate wind direction and speed ( the genoa can be bent on again). What all this means is that I ain't leaving this weekend! It is just as well as there are still a few things left to be done ..... like a shake-down sail or two. All things being equal, and with a break from Mother Nature and the Weatherman, a week from Saturday should be the day. That's a definite maybe. We shall see what happens, always remembering George Armstrong Custer.

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

It is amazing how many small things have suddenly reared their little heads now that things are seemingly coming to a head. There are an amazing number of last minute things that have shown up at the last minute. Things that I have put off because "there is plenty of time" have suddenly become very insistent about being settled immediately if not sooner. I am certain that I will get them all done and still forget a bunch until after I leave. Heck, it is a rare day that I do not go somewhere and forget half of the things I wanted to do. People who have been sailing with me always found it a bit funny when I did what I called "paranoia check" - juice off, seacocks closed, fuel shut off, etc - just before leaving the boat. And if I got interupted during the process, I would have to start from the beginning. If I didn't follow the routine, I just knew that I would forget somehting important and pay for it the next time I went for a sail. Remember the saying that goes:"Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you!" I have found enough items wrong when I did the check to justify doing the check. So I know that I will forget to do something before I leave and will forget to take something ( perhaps a number of thing) when I depart. Well, they don't call it "jury riggin" for nothing.