In The Water . . . Summer Must Be Here!

SHIP'S LOG:

     I just noticed that it has been almost 10 days since the last post. Time sure flies when you are having fun.  well, it hasn't exactly been fun but it hasn't been awful either. working on the boat, no matter how hard and frustrating it can be at times, is always a strangely relaxing experience. It does however remind me just how old I am getting. The aches and pains and stiffness I wake up with each day seem to be getting worse.

     I won't try to get the chronology right so let me just say that I "launched" on the 14th.  I was, by that time, really doing only busy work. The day before I had gone all around the hull filling and painting the dings that i picked up last season, mostly from docking attempt and some from blind launch drivers. That is a bad thing about dark colored hulls, they show up ever scrape, every scratch, ever mark.  It is not really a necessary thing as it can all be done dockside or even from a dinghy, but it is easier ashore. I was right in the middle of that project when Abe the yard manager comes buy and asks if I was ready to go into the water. When they haul the boats out in the fall, they try to set them on the hard in the order they wish to go back into the water, those going in the earliest nearest the water.  it is a way of managing the limit yard space efficiently. I had hoped to be going in sometime during the second week of May but those plans got tossed into a cocked hat when they "finally" decided to work on my wind generator. When they couldn't get it working, they sent it to some firm in Florida and we have been waiting for its return. Since they had to go up some 60 feet ion a man lift and the thing would fit on the docks, we had to wait for it to return ashore so that they could install it. I am not sure when it arrived but by late in the afternoon on Monday, they had parked the man-lift by my boat so that indicated that they had it. when I got there Tuesday morning, the wind generator was back up on the Mizzen Mast. Of course, there was no wind to test the job the company did on the rebuild, but they did send a complementary replacement blade and some sort of replacement piece for the hub. I have no idea why, but I'll take anything they are giving.

     They wanted to move my boat because ABISHAG was blocking access ti the boat directly behind which was contracted to go in the water on the 15th. But before they go be moved, I had to be moved to a new spot either on land or in the water. Since one move is less labor intensive than two, they decided to launch me, which is what they did.

     Launching the boat is always a source of serious anxiety for me. I am always sure that there is something major that I have forgotten to take care of and that she will sink on the spot. i had been planning to re-do the stuffing box, not because there was a problem but just because it is a good thing to do regularly. I had disassembled it but had not gotten to finish the job. As a result I had to reassemble it and was anxious that it was done right. It leaked of course, but they always will until they take up enough water and seal. Still there is something unnerving about having water coming into your boat while you are tightening down the stuffing box. It is awkward getting at it and I need a special wrench which is a cheap piece of crap and the whole business is a pain. Water is spurting and there I am holding a flash light with one hand and the wrench in the other, laying over the engine trying to tighten down the stuffing box, all the time thinking about sinking to the bottom of the Connecticut River. But it did get tightened down and ABISHAG didn't sink so that anxiety attack passed. And the engine worked too. And the steering as well. And ABISHAG safely got down to "C" Dock and all seemed right with the world.

     The next day I went up and got the sails and bent them on. It rain during the whole procedure. Not a lot of rain, just hard enough to be a pain and make the evolution just that much more difficult. But the sails are on. The engine runs. The lines are all in their proper places. Though the batteries are not really doing a good job hold a charge and Josh, the local electrician-magician thinks the charge/inverter is problematic, ABISHAG is ready to go. All I have to do is:

     1.) Find out the schedule for the Lyme/Saybrook Railroad Bridge;
     2.) Get some good weather;
    3.) Get some crew so we can do the two-car tango;
    4.) Pay the Yard Bill.

Number 4 may be a bit of a chore!