We Hauled the Boat Yesterday – Twice!

To finish up installing new instruments and electronics on Georgia we needed to do a quick haul to take out the old speed/temperature through-hull fitting and replace it with a new fitting that takes a transducer for speed/depth/temperature. Georgia’s bottom was really fairly ugly looking – kind of like a blooming algae garden topped off with small oysters. The anti-fouling bottom paint was only 5 months old. The stuff the previous owner (PO) put on is pretty useless – Aquaguard. When I talked to the Petit paint rep at the Annapolis boat show about what I should be using on the bottom, he referred to the Aquaguard as a low-cost starter paint. After a good pressure wash and some scraping Georgia didn’t have a smooth babies-butt, but she was able to strut her stuff with some pride.
I had the yard do the work on the through-hull (for the speed, depth, temperature gauges) because I didn’t have a drill big enough to drill the old one out (through that thick Outbound hull!) and I figured they would do the change while the boat hung in the Travel Lift slings, making the haul cheaper than if she had to be blocked and set on the ground. After we dropped her back in the water the winds were piping up to 18+kts. We wanted to go stern first into our slip, so Ralph, one of the yard guys, came along to help us back into slip. It was a less than glorious entry in the cross winds requiring some quick line handling by the trusty crew. We finally got her tied off and snugged in. I went down below to check the bilge for any leaks from the new through-hull. Sure enough – it was leaking away. So off we went for another haul and some rebedding. The second rebedding appears watertight – a good thing. Not leaking is one of the keys to cruising: Keep the water out, the mast pointing up, and the captain and crew onboard. The second time backing her into the slip was a little more graceful; practice makes perfect, or at least a little closer to perfect.
 

Going back into the water in on a windy, cold and sunny Chesapeake day – the second time.

The view from the lift

The fall view of the Virginia country side next to the boat yard

We’ve been working on a ton of other projects too. Here’s the first test fit for the new mainsail StackPack that Chris built. This should make handling the big main a lot a easier for the old, worn out crew.

Here I am heading to the mast head, 64ft above the water, to take off the old wind instruments and install new ones. Always a fun job.

Looks like we’ve finally decided to take out the Jello pan and recast our plans. We’re going to stay in York River till after Thanksgiving. We’ve rented a car and will drive the 6 hours down to Spartanburg, SC and have Turkey-Day with my brother and sister-in-law, John and Lisa. Then we’ll head back to Virginia and take off on Monday. We need to head to Hampton (near Norfolk) and stop for the night behind the North Sails loft to pick up the working jib that they are converting from hanked-on to roller furling. Then we’ll take a few days and go down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to Moorehead City, NC. This way we avoid going around Cape Hatteras in the late fall. From Moorehead we’ll head outside, and probably stop in at Charleston. Then outside again and head to Brunswick, GA or Jacksonville, FL. There we can catch up with our sister-in-law Mary. If time permits, we’ll then head to St Augustine to check it out. About this time Chris has another job in Zambia for about 10-days. Me, I’ll do some finish up jobs on the boat while she’s gone. Then probably down to Ft Lauderdale to say Hi to my Dad. Then out to the Bahamas for some snorkeling and cruising – no boat projects – except what breaks on the way. After that we  will most likely head south through the Windward passage west of Cuba down to Cartagena, Colombia, then back to the San Blas Islands in Panama. And finally a Canal transit back to the Pacific side.

I wrote all this down just so I could go back in a in a few months to see how unrealistic it was to plan that far head.

Paul