Another Ft. Lauderdale Update

The project list is getting visibly shorter and shorter!

Lifelines – We picked up our new lifelines yesterday and 6 out of 8 fit! That’s 75% so I give the rigger a C. The four forward ones were from our measurements. For this we took a string and held it at the forward bearing point and then made another mark at the aft bearing point. We did this four times for the four lifelines. So the string had a common forward bearing point and then 4 colored points for the 4 different lengths of the lifelines (yes all 4 are different…don’t ask.). At the riggers we laid the string out along their long bench which has a ruler glued to it. Now myself and the rigger read off the lengths for the various lines. My point is that this is NOT my mistake…this time! I only made marks. The actual measuring came at the rigging shop. As to the four shorter aft lines (center cockpit boat has many lifelines) we just took the existing lines and said make exact copies. One of THOSE fits nowhere! How does that happen? Anyway they’re going to make it right later today.

SSB – After much research and talking with people we’ve decided that the counterpoise does not have to be connected to the seawater directly via the installation of a Dynaplate. That’s good because that is more expense and another hole in the boat. The backstay is coming down today to be split up so as to make the central hunk the antenna. Stem to Stern is doing this.

Forward Head – We knew the y-valve was broken here as previous owner told us about it. As it was we could only flush the toilet overboard. Upon closer inspection I found the whole system looked like it was plumbed by a blind guy with an insane helper! Pipes everywhere (some which just ended and were open) two y-valves…both broken. Nothing for it but to rip apart the whole thing and start over. I wanted ALL the old pipes out as we have had a bad smell up there for some time. Now it is much simpler. Toilet goes right to a y-valve. One position is overboard and the other is to the tank. From the tank there are two paths. One is standard pumpout and the other is pump to deck via a Guzzler hand pump located down by the holding tank. 99% of the time cruisers flush to the sea no matter where they are. They do. BUT you must be able to set your y-valves to flush to tank before you get boarded by the coastguard but that is extremely rare.

Teak- Thanks to Sue the entire toe rail and rubrail now have three coats of Cetol light and two coats of Cetol gloss. Looks great! Having all the teak done will be a fine thing but then we have to be sure to have a regular maintenance schedule for keeping it looking fine. We don’t want to ever have to do all of it at once again.

Hull- Hull is dry enough and sanding and fairing begins in earnest today. As soon as hull is smooth I can start painting…two coats of barrier and two coats of bottom paint.

Engine – Engine is back together with rebuilt water pump. I have to change oil and filters and replace coolant before we go. Stem to Stern is installing the new dripless shaft packing as I couldn’t get the coupler off by myself.

Sail Cover – On the next calm day Sue and I will take off the mainsail and install the Mack Pack that we purchased so many weeks ago! Instructions are pretty clear but we figure it will be an all day job. Requires climbing the mast. Now that we have mast steps I can’t beg off so Sue may be off of bosun’s chair duty! Damn!

So, we could be underway in another week to 10 days. We hope we remember how to sail!