It is getting colder as fall comes in. The downside of this is that the late-hauling boats all want to be hauled now and since this is a yard where most of the work is done by the yardworkers rather than by the boat owners, I am a bit of an oddity here, all that is involved in winterizing the boats is being done by the yardworkers. What this means is that the work that they got half done on ABISHAG remains in that state. And the weather gets colder. It is not that much of the work is beyond my skill but if I step in now and finish it and something goes wrong, it is my fault. Basically I have to let them finish what they have started and I hope they get around to it soon.
This doesn't mean that there isn't stuff for me to do, oh there is plenty but really it is stuff that can be done at any time. It would effect the trip or the departure date. It really rained on Tuesday and I discovered all of the leaks that I thought I had plugged we still active. Well, not all but three: the port in the fore-cabin, the main salon hatch and the portside port in the main salon. I couldn't do anything so long as it was raining so Wednesday became a re-caulking day, ripping out the old and putting in the new. Almost as much fun as fiberglassing but at least it stops the drips on your head.
With the electrics still out, I bought a small Honda generator for juice while tied up at the dock. Actually, I was planning to do so anyway as I doubted that the wind generator alone would allow me to run the engine significantly less. I really don't want to run the main propulsion engine simply to charge the batteries. It's not good for the engine in any event and until I get a chance to live aboard for a couple of months, I won't have much of an idea of how big an electrical load I will have to deal with on the boat and what is the best way to generate the power.
ABISHAG is officially ABISHAG. Not only do I have the official documentation but I put the name on her yesterday. I have no idea quite how it looks as the "coolness" of the weather requires it to dry out completely before removing covering. I will be going down today and will be stripping the paper off. I'll let you know how it looks. And I have started bringing stuff down to the boat now. It is fun to begin to do this at last.
MASTER'S PERSONAL LONG:
It is beginning to bother me that the weather is getting so much colder so quickly. It is making the prospect of the trip south much more of a chore than I hoped it would be. Heading south in near-freezing weather is not something I am looking forward to doing. I will have to winterize the boat for frostbite sailing and that would be an unanticipated expense. Of course there are two other options, winter over here in Connecticut or hiring a delivery crew and have them take the boat south to say Norfolk, VA. Neither of these two option would be cheap on top of everything else. This is getting more than a bit frustrating and I am trying to get a sense of what this is all about. There is not a lot I can do about and will have to wait it out, making plans for all of the options. It is not fun to think about staying here for the winter nor going south in the freezing cold. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
