More Fun Than Is Legal!

     There are two things I dislike about sailing and/or owning a sailboat, two tasks that I would love to never do again. The first is painting the bottom of the boat. It has gotten to the point where I no longer get the bottom paint as smooth as glass by launching. I no longer sand and scrape and chip as I no longer use bottom paint that dries to a hard finish.  It was a yearly pain in the butt which never seemed to fulfill the promises made on the can. Several years ago, I moved on to "ablative" bottom paint. It is a "soft" paint  and releases the "magical ingredients" by simply wearing away. As long as there is paint on the hull, it's working. No need to sand and remove the old paint after a year. Simply paint the bottom and you are done. Still, one has to get into all sorts of "gymnastic level" positions to do the job and I age, it gets more and more uncomfortable. But it would certainly be worse using the old style paint. Still, painting the bottom is a pain.

     The second task is washing sails at the sail loft. This particular job is not just limited to my own sails but all the ones dropped off at the loft  in the fall for pick-up in the spring.You have to wrestle the sails into the cleaning solution, as mix of bleach and DAWN and get them completely immersed and let them soak for at least 15 minutes. The water is cold and slops everywhere as we are talking about some rather large pieces of unyielding material. After it is cleaned, each sail must be moved from the cleaning solution into the rinsing tub, another small ocean of cold water in which it must be agitated for several minutes to wash out the cleaning solution. The the "clean" sail needs to be removed from that solution and hung up to drip dry.  Water, water everywhere. It is why the whole process is done wearing foul-weather gear. Then again, all foul weather gear leaks so one is not completely dry when the process is over. It usually takes a day for a sail to dry. Then it must be taken down, folded, put into its bag and hauled upstairs to the loft work floor. At best, you can get get four to six sails done in  a day, so it is a long process to get them all done. While that is going on, you have to keep the floor clean and dry.  You have no idea how heavy and hard to handle those wet sails are and hoisting them up to dry  . . . ugh! And of course, there is really no heat in the wash room and the whole process seems never ending. But of curse, it needs to be done. UGH!

     I bring this up because that is what my days at the loft are made of. Where is the Publishers Clearing House Prize team when I could really use them!