GroupWBench

This is another catch up post…it seems like that is about all I do here. At least I don't let it all get so far gone that catching up isn't possible. This is a sailing/sailboat catch up. My next post will try to catch up on the rest of stuff going on in our world.

Ivy went on her trip to sail down from Oriental to Charleston. It ended as a bust. Proving the rule that sailing plans are written in sand at low tide. Boat maintenance was going to take longer than Ivy time had to spend there. She gets big points for going and being willing to try, anyway.

We finally wrapped up the headliner project. As usual, the job took twice as long and cost double what we originally expected. We are pleased that it turned out pretty nice. During the middle of the project we had an electrical problem. The master AC breaker died. It did its job honorably for forty-one years, so I guess I shouldn't complain. But with no AC in the boat, we were forced to run a long extension cord to get anything done for couple of weeks. That was a bit awkward. Replacing the switch meant I had to spend time in the punishment box – AKA the lazarette. It is dirty, hot, and very tight down in the hole. I don't go down there without someone around to rescue me if I get stuck.

   
Once the electrical issues were fixed, Ivy and I headed to the marina early on a Saturday morning to knock out the headliner project. It had stormed a bit the night before, but we didn't think anything of it. When we got to the marina we learned that they had had seventy mile  an (or more, depending on who is doing the exaggerating) hour winds for a half hour or so. The truth is, our marina isn't terribly nice. They certainly aren't spending much on little details like properly anchoring the floating docks too well. This wind blew all of the docks into each other and a bunch of boats got really messed up. By the time we got there, they had pulled them apart some, the back of our boat was about twenty feet from the one across the way from us. The docks were bent up and fairly mangled.

Our neighbors had a new anchor. I doubt they meant for that to happen.

Fortunately for us, our boat had no damage at all. Our friends, Dwight & Patti, had a good bit of damage. It must have really taken something to blow a whole dock into his rudder hard enough to shatter his tiller.

We got to work on our headliner while the marina workers tried to fix the docks and boat owners were surveying the damage to their boats. The inside of our boat looked like a construction zone.

We don't have and pictures of the final product, but it did turn out nice. This is part of one piece of it up without any trim.

This weekend we planned on getting back out to the lake to try to take care of a couple of things and also to actually sail the damn boat. The work-to-fun ratio has been way out of whack lately. We planned on spending the night on the boat and enjoying the mild(ish) weather. It turns out that there had been more rain than we had realized. The lake was a bit flooded. Fortunately, we were able to still get to the boat.

We had tripped across a good deal on a kayak earlier in the week and brought it. As it turns out, I took it for a quick test run, but we were pretty busy and didn't really play with it much.

Believe it or not, the boat gods smiled on us this weekend. We finished up a few chores, had some real luck, and got in a good sail. We replaced the hatch strut so that it won't slam down on anyone now. That was a bit more involved than simply undoing the four screws on the old one and screwing in the new ones, We had to fill the old holes with epoxy, cut spacers to give us the 1/8th in clearance we needed and then button it all back up. But it went ok. In the afternoon, Ivy ran home hoping to pick up a part we would need for a future project while I helped an unnamed, but good friend, clear out his boat. The insurance company said it was totaled in our windstorm. It was painful for him to unload his things from the boat he had done so much hard work on and had so much fun in.

On a side note, I have to confess something for Ivy. For the last year or so she has been experiencing serious winch envy. That is winch, not wench. Pull your mind out of that gutter and follow along here. Our winches were almost adequate. They were old and the barrels on them was worn pretty smooth. That, combined with the oversized headsail we have meant that Ivy worked really hard working our lines that control the big genoa sail we have. One weekend we went sailing with friends that had what are known as self-tailing winches. These little design miracles grab hold of the lines and you don't have to keep pressure on them by pulling on them with one hand while you crank the sail in with the other. Ever since that weekend Ivy would sigh and look longingly at any boat with self-tailing winches we went past.

I was talking to my friend whose boat was totaled and he said that the insurance company was going to pick up his boat and take it to a salvage yard in Houston where it would be taken apart and trashed. I mentioned that they probably wouldn't care what kind of winches were on the boat when they picked it up. After a bit of consultation, Ivy and I were designated as early morning winch switchers. She and I got up early on Sunday and swapped the sexy self-tailing winches on the totaled boat for the old and undersized winches on our boat.

We got the new-to-us winches installed with a minimum of fuss and took the boat out to knock off the spider webs. It was a very nice sail, the winches worked great, and we went a long ways towards moving the needle on the work-to-suck meter back into the green. you can see the new winch by Ivy's knee. (She is actually smiling on the inside in this picture.)