Work & Play

SHIP'S LOG:

The weather has been great and so has the sailing, so I took the morning and the early afternoon to go out and play tag with a couple of Luders 44 Yawls from the Coast Guard Academy. The USCGA has 5 of these yawls which are used to held the students learn how to sail as part of a crew. They learn to sail on much smaller one person boats up the river by the academy, but learn to sail as a crew on the bigger boats out on the Sound. Eventually, they will sail on the EAGLE and most will probably end up commanding a 15foot Zodiac.

The Sounds was actually fairly hazy though the wind was decent. I sail around the yawls which were practicing over by the Dumplings. The kids must have all been from Kansas or Nebraska for they all seemed rather transfigured by the Sound, as if it was the largest body of water they had ever seen. Lots of correcting going on aboard, especially "Pay Attention to what you're doing!"

Was back on the mooring by 1:30 as there were a couple of jobs to do. The first was to haul the auxiliary rudder from the Hydro-vane to scrape it and paint it. It was a job I should have done when the boat was on the hard but I just kept putting it off to do other more important tasks, so now it had to be done on the water.Disconnecting the rudder is as simple as pulling one safety pin - not that kind of safety pin - and pull it up on the back deck. Then scrape off the various nautical life-forms who have made it home. It is important to wash down the deck after this as these little formerly living creatures do tend to give off a rather pungent odor if they sit in the sun out of the water for too long. Then it is simply a matter of painting one side, bottom paint and then re-attaching it. No big deal and it went off without a hitch.

The other job was painting the caprail with the polyurethane to seal it and give it a "nice, shiny, glossy finish." As with the scraping and staining, it was more of an acrobatic exercise than anything else. As with all, or at least most projects, while it went well, actually easily, it uncovered another project. Some of the teak deck pieces are "mushy" and need to be be replaced and re-attached to the deck itself. This is what undoubtedly accounts for some of those pesky interior leaks. I can't afford to replace the teak slats, so I will re-caulk the deck and seal the offending slats with the polyurethane and "Capt. Tolly's Creeping Crack Cure." But not today!

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

We got hit with another storm on Thursday morning, short and strong, with lots of rain, thunder and lightning, and even a tornado waring. Being on the boat during a storm is exciting to say the least. Such a storm on land , in your house or car, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. One the boat however, I notice, am aware of the wind - how strong it is, the rain - how hard it is falling, and just how long the whole thing lasts. These are thing I never think of on land but are of real concern on the boat. A lightning strike, especially if you are it, holds real concern. But as I said, most of these things pass unnoticed on land. I suppose it is all a matter of perspective.