More good progress today. It may seem to you that I'm working slowly. Well, I am. Crammed upside down on a rolling boat in a stinky engine room tends to slow me down. But. . .
I did finally screw down the inspection plate. Yesterday only 9 of 12 screws would go in so today I took all the screws back out and had to re-tap two of the holes. The other was just being shy about being screwed. All went down very nicely then. We'll see how well it seals!
I did find a right angle drill to borrow on the morning VHF cruisers net. There's no other way to drill and tap the holes necessary for the fuel gauge. Had to walk over to the next bay, Mt. Hartman, to pick it up and, yes, I got miserably lost in the heat of the day. I turned a 10 minute walk into a 45 minute Bataan death march. But I found it and I got the drill and I sold my refrigeration gauges in the bargain.
Back on board I decided to put the drilling and tapping in the engine room off to tomorrow morning when it's a little cooler and busied myself with fishing the wires from the hydraulic ram down by the steering quadrant up to the galley where I've mounted the brain box for the auto pilot. No big challenges there and it sure is nice to have a fish tape on board. I wonder where I got it?
Sue, being the wonderful 1st (or 2nd) mate trudged to a lumber yard and brought back a 6' piece of 2x4. Yay! I'm going to marry (sue?) that board to a cross member down by the rudder post and bolt the hydraulic ram to those 2x4's. that should be solid and that should WORK.
I wrote to Raymarine today as it seemed none of the wires that came with my auto pilot system actually connect the control head to the brain box. Well, no, they don't because there are about 6 other items I'm supposed to have for that! Really? I wrote back and told them I don't have any other Raymarine products, no chart plotter, no radar, no gps, etc. I just want the damn thing to steer the boat on a set compass course! Now we'll see how long it takes to get THESE parts if in fact they are essential (of course they will be and they'll be damn expensive I'm guessing).
Our new jib is done and on board. Tomorrow we're going to buy new jib halyard and probably new sheets as well. Anxious to see what this new sail looks like unfurled!
Looks like we might just get Enee back together before we run out of money. Could we sail away from here in a week? We'll see. . . Stay tuned!
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