For Winter COntinues

SHIP'S LOG: 

     The broker is suppose to call me tomorrow and we are suppose to go up to Portland where he can inspect ABISHAG.  SOOOOOO Naturally, it is suppose to snow tomorrow through Thursday night.   As someone once said, "timing is everything in life!"

   Know that if I delay and wait until tomorrow to do the measuring I wrote about, so I can have another reason to drive up to Portland and the boat, that the broker would cancel and the snow would prevent the trip, I went up to Yankee Boatyard today to do the measuring, guaranteeing that it will be bright and sunny tomorrow, even after the broker cancels the trip.

     The measuring took a little over and hour and a half. The toughest part was getting into the engine compartment to measure the size of the stuffing box packing nut and its accompanying locking nut. The stuffing box packing nut  is on a piece of thread pipe through which passes the drive shaft from the engine/transmission inside the boat to the prop out side the boat. The stuffing box packing nut holds several pieces of "packing" - a cord of waxed flax that is wrapped around the shaft and compressed by the stuffing box packing nut hard enough to keep the water out but no so hard as to off resistance to the spinning shaft. I can see that extracting the old flax packing, which requires a tool that looks like a tiny corkscrew on the end of a braided wire with a "T" handle, is going to be a bit "trying."  Basically I'll have to lay on the engine to get at the stuffing box. Getting all the packing out will something akin to doing a root canal anally. I did it before when I had the O'Day 27 but access to the stuffing box in the boat was clear and easy. in addition, friend John Planet, a brilliant mind with all thing nautical, was present  thus making the job a snap. I look forward to this job not at all.

     I am going to need about 12 feet of wood for the cap-rail scarfing.  Teak runs a good $9.50/ ft Of course there are other hard woods but teak is the best which is why it is rare and expensive. I have a couple of pieces that kicking around and some of the left over wood from last year's project, but now where near enough. I will do what I can with what I have and then bite the bullet.

     I am still learning things about ABISHAG and her construction. On the engine compartment bulkhead that faces the galley, there is a small counter, more space for use in preparing meals. At the forward end of this counter there is a "pole" that sticks into it. I was measuring this counter space for the tiling project and it irritated me that this "pole" was there. I thought that it was some sort of "support" for the part of the cockpit flooring that over hung the counter. On further inspection it turns out that this chrome "pole" is actually the drain pipe form the starboard side cockpit drain.  It made me realize that there needs to be a plumbing schematic done for ABISHAG to go along with the electrical schematic that needs to be done. AH, more projects!