No News Is Good News! ! ! ! !

SHIP'S LOG:

I have yet to hear from the crew down at the Boat Shop at Captain's Cove Seaport which is both good and bad. Good in the sense I still have time to come up with the deductible (3.2 MUs) and bad in the sense that it means they haven't begun to make a start at doing the work. Intrusion of snow/sleet/rain/runoff into the damage areas of the keel, along with the freezing temps will probably mean that the job will become just a tad bigger. There really is nothing that I can do about it and as you know(if you have been following this blog) from the experience of last Fall, boat yard crews move at their own pace and it is a mystery how and why and when they tackle particular tasks. I just trust that it will get do and done right and done by May 1, 2009.

I also have not heard from the Insurance company since the follow-up contact. They paid off Tow Boat/US and I presume that they have, are, will do the same with Captain's Cove Seaport Boat Yard. Also there has been no word on whether they will institute a premium rate increase or drop me altogether. Again, a good new/potentially bad news situation.

I have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 (20 MUs) of various items for the Spring outfitting. Spent it in my mine not in reality. In reality, I haven't got that much, not unless I win Powerball or something. However, expenses should run somewhere around 2 MUs. The bottom paint alone in $109 a gallon and I need two gallons to do the hull. putting the boat aground twice didn't jive well with my plan to just paint the parts that needed painting which you can do with an ablative paint. An Ablative paint dries soft and wears away as you sail. When you have the boat and power wash the bottom, the paint that remains will still be effective when the boat goes back into the water. You don't need to sand the bottom (a hateful job requiring gloves, a respirator, coveralls and a grant from the EPA). One needs only to slap on paint on those places where it has worn away completely and those other places where it is obviously getting thin. Of course, power washing the boat 's hull twice in two months, putting it aground twice in two months, and have hull work done twice in two months goes a long way rendering most of that plan moot.

I am plugging away at the mystery know as electricity. So far, it has only been academic inquiry, no hands on yet. Being dyslexic(SPELL CHECK was crated for me), it is hard for me to follow a lot of the material from the printed page and there is a surprising dearth of videos on the Internet. But I keep plugging away and hopefully when I get to the hands on part, I won't be the cause of another "Great New England Blackout!"

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

105 days to go! It would move a lot faster if I were down at the boat working on stuff and I would be if she were in a shed or undercover, but as she is right now, work is close to impossible. we are half way through January, so time is passing rather quickly, or so it seems, and the weather will so moderate so I can get started. It is waiting until then that is the drag. And I do me DRAG