Thursday, July 16, 2015

Living easy, living large

For a couple of retired people living easy and large on a sailing yacht, we have occasional days that spin completely out of control. All in a good way, of course. Yesterday was such a day.

It started simply enough with finishing up the inverter install being the only thing on the menu. Before that really got started Deb accepted an invitation to crew in the Wednesday night race, with a 1730 departure-from-the-dock time. No problem. Even I couldn't stretch finishing up the install to take up a whole day. And it didn't.
What took up the whole day was discovering that one of the parts we bought for that finish wasn't in the box they sent us. A different, though similar, part had been put in the box at the factory. As a result the really important part, a 200 amp ANL fuse, didn't fit in the part that came out of the box, which was supposed to be an ANL fuse holder...but wasn't.

Rats-n-fratsen-brain-fused-parts-packing-no-good-low-life-wankers...

After spinning of wheels searching for some traction to get the job going again, the best option seemed to be making the run to Annapolis to get the right part that should have been in the box in the first place. So off we went. It is a bit of a hike from here to Annapolis so, since we were there already and to save Deb the trouble of having to drive back a second time, some provisioning shopping was in order. Such shopping included a visit to the beer store. In order? Indeed. (It is amazing how difficult a job just finding beer can be depending on the liquor laws from state to state.)

Which is the excuse for not getting started on the inverter install until 1400 in the afternoon. It went as expected. Undo much of what had been already done, do some of it over, than redo the do-over until the bits fit the parts and the inverter hummed a happy tune of turning DC into AC. (No panties in wads please, I'm talking electricity.)

The last screw went into place at EXACTLY 1730. A quick change of work clothes to crew clothes and a dash to the dock. Let the sailing begin.

Begin it did, and it was grand.

Though Deb and I are not of the racing clan in the sailing world, Derek (he of power boat tour fame) is an amicable Captain with a long history of racing these waters. The fleet was of a good size, the course well laid out, and the winds hovered in the mid 20s for the entire evening. We had rails in the water, laid in close to other racers, passed a few, got passed by a few, and played tag with a car-carrier-ship at one of the marks. They race around shipping lanes in these parts and everyone seems to get along just fine while doing so.

In two laps of a 2.5 mile course we probably tacked more times than we did during the entire last trip to the Islands. Of course tacking a Person 303 is a fair bit easier than tacking Kintala with her full cutter rig flying, but it was still a pretty good workout. After a few, we had the routine down, giving every appearance of being a well-oiled racing machine.

The only down side to the evening was that the vigorous heeling scattered everything we had brought on throughout the interior. Oops. No damage. No foul. But we haven't done anything like that for too many months.

It was nearly 2200 before we climbed the ladder onto Kintala's deck, making for a very long day. One that veered from the frustration of the wrong part in the right box, to the sublime of tacking side-by-side another boat in 20+ knots worth of wind,  a car-carrier as the backdrop.

I guess we are living easy and living large well on a sailing yacht after all.





























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