April 14, 2015
Well here I am blogging again. Last summer was quite the whirlwind summer of wedding attendance, wedding preparation, and boat work on “the hard” inbetween hosting a wedding and attending three other weddings. Our oldest daughter, Marisol and her fiance, Josh Beckner, were married at our home last summer on July 19th. Needless to say we had some projects to finish up in preparation for the grand day! By June 23 we were back in Santa Fe after a month in Port Townsend, to get the house and property ready for the wedding.
After a joyous wedding and wonderful visits with family and friends, by early August we were back in Washington continuing work on the boat. At the end of October we were ready for a break and returned to New Mexico for the winter. We had completed about half of the things that have to be done before the boat goes back in the water. Some of those things included pulling the mast to inspect it for corrosion and replace electrical wiring for the electronics on the boat. We also pulled all the running and standing rigging off the boat to be replaced. All the “bright work”, i.e. any wood on the boat that needed to be varnished, had up to 7 or 8 coats of new varnish applied after preparing the wood. Prep involved sanding everything first. This was all done by yours truly. I learned quite a bit about the skill, knowledge, and patience required to do this job properly. I also learned about caulking when I caulked all around the whole outer cap rail on the boat where the wood is attached to the fiber glass. In all my life I never thought I’d learn to wax a boat but I did that too.
Later in the early fall Kieran came to help out on the boat overhaul. He showed me how to service a winch. I ended up cleaning and re-greasing five of the seven on the boat. Mike persevered with the work on the mast, getting advice from the rigger in the boatyard, he managed to put all new standing rigging on the mast, new wiring inside the mast, and steps for climbing up to the top. In late October the mast was put back on the boat! We have also replaced most of the old hoses on the boat, and Mike installed a propane alarm and new propane hoses.The old anchor chain was taken out of the boat to be galvanized in Seattle.
Things left to do on the boat are not so major as the mast overhaul but are many. The wiring for the radios is ready and waiting for the new radios to be mounted. The shifting mechanism on the steering is backwards and needs to be changed. Mike is not satisfied with the fore and aft standing rigging. So he will have to get some expert advice on that. The “head”, which is a marine composting toilet, (state of the art, way ahead of the ones we all know about on land) has to be installed with it’s fan. It’s about half finished. The new running rigging will have to be put on. The sails will have to be reattached. There are many more details that I’m not going into right now. Various and sundry, necessary odds and ends. All these things take lots of time! Lots of time, partly because we’ve never done this kind of thing before and partly it just takes time. Oh yes, Mike is a mechanic but the setting is brand new, and his helper (me) is learning about stuff I've never had anything to do with before in my life. We are hoping working towards being in the water no later than the fourth of July!
