Every Day Is Different!

SHIP'S LOG:

A beautiful day today and a good day for work. I took the opportunity to whittle down the never ending "Projects List" some. Nothing of any great consequence though somethings that needed doing. I finally fixed the fenderboards and got them rigged rig. Fenderboards, for those not in the know nautically speaking, are "boards that hang in front of the fenders along the side of the boat when your are docked. The idea is to have the fenders rest on the side of the boat and the "board" between the fenders and the pilings of the dock. Fenders are basically rubber tubes that are meant to keep docks and piling and other boast from making contact with the boat and so doing damage to the topsides. Being tubes, the fenders, which are hung of the side of the boat on a piece of line attached to the lifelines, tend to roll and move and can easily be pushed out of the way and so lose their effectiveness. By affixing a couple of them them to the ends of a board, or in my case to a 3" diameter piece of PVC pipe, they remain in place and the board takes the punishment from the piling and/or dock. My fenderboards needed to be re-rigged as all the crushing against various docks and pilings had pretty much done in the lines holding fenders to pipe and need replacing. A simple task done out in the warm sun.

There were also various cotter pins and wire ties that had to be replaced and/or upgraded. The salt air does its best to destroy every piece of equipment or to at least make it non-functioning. So there were more blocks and shackles and other such things that needed to be taken apart and lube and reassembled. Again, not tough jobs but more ongoing maintenance that needed doing.

Someone said that bad things happen in threes. It may be true. When the launch was coming to pick me up, the steering cable parted and it lost steering. The driver was able to use the emergency tiller to get along side and I helped out for a while running the throttle while he helmed the launch. Last night was Wednesday night, Race Night, and there were lots ope people looking to first get out to their boats and then back in again. The two man combo was not the best way to run the launch but it worked reasonably well.

The second thing that went wrong was there was no hot water in the shower this morning. Thank goodness it was rather warm already so the cold water wasn't such a shock. It can sure wake you up in the morning though!

And number three? Well, I am worried about that! It could be anything or it could be nothing, but the waiting for the shoe to drop is never pleasant. Perhaps, it is just an old wives' tale or an urban legend or something like that. Still . . . . . . . . . .