The Retirement Project

Boat parts go on...

2012-02-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

Some parts go on to get the boat back to where it was. Other parts go on to make the boat a little bit better than it was. (And, truth to tell, some parts go off and on because I'm not always exactly sure what I am doing.)

This particular project falls into the "make the boat a little bit better" category. It was Deb's idea to replace the plastic seat at the nav table with a bench and, while doing so, add some badly needed storage space for her galley. I think it came out rather well. In addition to replacing ugly and giving Deb more space, the bench makes sitting at the nav station much more comfortable and secure, allows better access through the aft cabin door, brightens up that corner of the boat a little bit, and provides a place for a person going "on watch" to get ready. All good stuff for some wood, glue, nails and labor. Many thanks to another Tartan 42 owner who was generous enough to share the design with us.

The only trick was that the floor the bench sits on isn't flat. I had to fabricate two long wedges to sit under the aft and port edges. Fortunately they were a near perfect fit on the first try. I might do a little touch-up sanding and stain; then again I might not.

Next? Hatches.

A Perfectly Beautiful Spring Day in St. Louis...In January??

2012-02-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was 66 in St. Louis. Being under-employed, I had a chance to take a stroll to the nearby park with my three grandkids to do nothing more pressing than to see if the two girls could bounce me off the middle of the seesaw and which of them could make it past me down the slide without paying the Dema Kiss Toll. There was lots of laughing and enjoying the warm sun on cheeks turned skyward and the warm breeze tousling their toddler hair.
Just in case you forgot, yesterday was January 31st. And just in case you happen to live somewhere in the Southern climes and don't know what St. Louis weather is usually like in January, it's definitely not . like . this. In fact it usually involves a horrendous ice storm about the second week in January that culminates in 6 weeks of trying to salt the four inches of ice in the alley so that Tim can get his car out of the garage. The whole afternoon while I was having a great time with the kids, I had this niggling sci-fi disaster movie kind of feeling going on in my head. Everyone's enjoying the lack of winter around here, but it's SO out of the ordinary that it's frightening to me in that polar-ice-cap-melting-and-losing-Florida-under-the-raised-ocean-levels kind of way. The migration patterns of the birds at the lake are all out of whack, the Snow Geese are still flying formations over the lake in odd directions and way later than usual; Monday I actually saw some flying back
North again. All of our bulbs are up, the crocuses are blooming, I saw a robin today, there are a ton of bugs flying around everywhere and the cherry trees in the next block are blooming. In January. Not in May. This is unprecedented and yet I don't hear anyone else raising the alarm.

So what does this have to do with a sailing blog? Apart from the fact that I love sailing and I can't think of any way I would rather spend my remaining years with my best friend, the whole plan has the one benefit of living greener with a small footprint and, even though I doubt it's possible, of paying back in some small way the damage that my generation did by being so self-absorbed. I look at the planet now and it makes me hurt deeply. All I can hope is that she'll have mercy on us and let us pass through the plastic-strewn waters without tossing us to the bottom in one of the new mega-hurricanes. I think I'll go dig out my sunscreen a little early this year...

It's not about the boat. Really.

2012-01-28T19:50:00.000-08:00

I've been following the blog of one of our followers who is a few years behind us in the 5-year plan. She's in that early stage of Boat Porn and the constant wondering and fretting over the boat that will be required for them to fulfill their dream. I remember those days, because they were us until just very recently - last April to be exact. But this weekend we took our annual train ride to Chicago for Strictly Sail and, it being the first boat show we attended where we weren't looking for "The Boat", I confess (in light of all the difficulties we've had with Kintala) to being just a tad worried that I might find myself regretting our choice of the Tartan once we got there and were confronted with all the nice, new, shiny boats. I was genuinely nervous about it and thought about it all the way to Chicago.

As Tim mentioned in his previous post, we had an opportunity to go hear John Kretschmer talk about his Atlantic crossings. He prefaced his talk by saying that in the early years of your venture into cruising you're all about The Boat. You want it to be perfect. You fret. You search. You buy. You pimp. Then he made a rather profound statement that was one of those epiphany moments that I seem to be having pretty frequently these days. "It's not about the boat. It's about the life. It's about the people." I'm pretty sure if the Strictly Sail people heard that statement they probably wouldn't ask him back. They desperately want you to believe that it's ALL about the boat so they can sell you all kinds of new shiny things. But John's right. It's about the life. It's about the people. No need for me to have worried at all, because now I can see that Kintala is just exactly the right boat.

Boat Show!

2012-01-28T17:34:00.000-08:00

Kintala's blowed up drive train precluded Deb and I spending the funds necessary to make the Annapolis show this year. We made it to Chicago, which is still one of my most favorite of trips. So far as I am concerned there are only two truly civilized modes of transportation on the planet; trains and sailboats. (Outrageously overpowered sport bikes which, truth to tell, no sane person would think of riding at all, are a concession to the Infidels, Pagans, and Bohemians among us.) At Oh-dark-four-thirty Thursday morning we boarded the Lincoln Express in St. Louis. I promptly fell asleep and woke up in Chicago. A short cab ride later and we were standing outside the doors waiting for the show to start. How cool is that?

Thursday is the day for a boat show. It seemed like a couple of hundred of us had the place all to ourselves. Booths still pristine, no lines to look at the shiny new boats; its like having VIP tickets at every-day-folks prices. Even better, Deb and I climbed around every single one of the Hunter, Catalina, Jeanneau, and Dufour offerings as well as the Estero, and we didn't see a single boat we would want more than our Tartan. (Tartan didn't make the show, so Kintala didn't have to compete with a new 4000.) We did see a bunch of ideas we liked that may find their way onto Kintala one of these days.

This was the first show we have attended where we were not debating "The Boat". Instead we were looking at stuff that we would need to add to "The Boat" before we can get going; dink & motor, auto-pilot, and dodger. Then there are the things we would like to add; chart plotter, solar panels, wind generator, and a more efficient fridge. And then there was the stuff we hadn't thought about but suddenly discovered we probably should take care of; most importantly a furling system for our (to us) massive head sails that doesn't jam or try to jerk my

fingers out by the roots when I need to get the sail doused before a mid-western TWR thumps us a good one. Crawling out to the bow to unjam the furler while bucking across the Gulf stream hard on the wind? I'm thinking that's a game for the young and limber; two descriptions that have not applied to me for many a year.

All of that was a bit discouraging. Even if we go with just the must-have of the must-have; dink & motor plus auto pilot - the SBUs add up to about equal to the hole blown in our credit card by the V-drive. And that set us back a year. But our friend John Kretschmer was one of those giving seminars at the show this year, and one of his talks was "Atlantic Crossings." (He has done 20 of them.) One hour sitting in a room with him and all discouragement faded away. We are going to get Kintala under way if I have to shade-tree the V-drive and row a worn out Dink back and forth to shore. We are going to take a season on big blue water to figure out the things we haven't figured out on our little lake.

Then we are going to the Med.

Which makes me think the Chicago boat show might be bad for me. The first year we went we were still thinking of ourselves as Catamaran people who might go as far as the Bahamas. Last year we went and found Kintala. and figured the Western Atlantic would be our playground. This year we decided we should sail our Tartan around the Atlantic ocean...all the way around. Clearly Chicago does somethingt to my brain, or maybe its the train rides?

Which, after the mid-night ride last night, has us back on Kintala this evening. Deb worked a contract job on another boat this afternoon while I managed to bolt our re-sized nav bench / storage bin in place. It isn't finished just yet, the lid awaits cushion and installation. But at least one project is as far as I can get it tonight, and that is putting a pleasant glow on the day. (The Rum & Coke I just finished isn't hurting that cause either.)

Mood Camera - INOP

2012-01-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have the fortune of being blissfully unaware of aviation jargon, there is a thing called a squawk list, a list of items on an aircraft that, after routine inspection or a flight, are found needing repair or replacement which are given a designation such as Mood Camera - INOP. When I got up this morning to pay dues on my really excellent Moscato from last night, I poked my head out the companionway to find an incredibly beautiful scene - fog, mist, gulls circling around the marina in a cloud...There was a mood there, a realization that the gulls and the fog and the mist all belonged there, that they were doing what they had done for millennia, and that amazingly I had the privilege of being there at that particular moment. I grabbed the camera and tried to get a video, but the mood was immediately lost, as if indignant that I had tried to capture it and somehow strip its authenticity. I had one of those epiphany moments though, the complete and total understanding of cruisers who, when asked what one thing they would tell prospective cruisers, all say, "Go Now!" because, while you can read all the blogs in the world, and watch all the sailing videos on YouTube, and talk to all the sailors you run across, unless you're there in the middle of the fog and mist and clouds of gulls you're just going to miss the experience.

The Ice Queen

2012-01-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

One thing Missouri and Southern Illinois are famous for is a winter full of ice. St. Louis, where our condo is, and Carlyle Lake, where our home is, both happen to fall right along the line where the jetstream makes its winter dip into the plains, leaving a perfect meteorological highway for the Gulf of Mexico moisture to track up the front lines. Sometimes we get a little snow, sometimes we get a little rain, but most of the time we get ice. A . Lot . Of . Ice.

This weekend we escaped the worst of it, getting only about a 1/4" of the nasty stuff, but when you can't use the head due to winterizing and your 55-year-old bladder calls at 3:00am, it can seem like an insurmountable obstacle to relief to make it all the way to the bath house at the top of the hill.

Traveling up the severely slanted walkway to and from the clubhouse isn't too bad because there's a decent handrail, but the docks are glare ice and they have no handrail so getting across to the walkway requires a steadying of shaky legs that I just don't seem to have at 3:00am. Ahhhh to be young again.

All in all Kintala seems to be enduring the winter fairly well. The summer covers that we put on to protect her (in lieu of the winter ones we couldn't afford) have held up dramatically well in spite of 60+mph winds in 2 different storms. The plywood hatch covers that we put on while the hatches were out for overhaul are not leaking in the least, our cheapo dorade plugs are doing their job quite nicely and our foam floor mat is keeping our toes toasty. If you gotta get through winter in Missouri I guess Kintala is getting us through with as much flair as is possible, and for that I'm very grateful. I'm very much looking forward to the first day that I can throw everything open and let the warm Spring air rush through.

Abandoning a perfectly good ship

2012-01-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

No, not Kintala. Kintala is a lot of things but a "perfectly good ship" isn't one of them. (At least at the moment.) I'm still grinding away on the list of things needing done before our Tartan is an operable boat once again.

I was talking with an old friend today. When he asked how things were going all I could think to say was, "Pretty good." Pretty good? I get paid a lot of money to do a job I like doing. Many of the people I love most in the world live close at hand. I drive a 350Z that makes a $1.20 with ease, meeting my occasional need for a burst of speed. (I does miss me some GSXR sometimes - a bike that filled my rush junkie need for a rush better than any ground bound vehicle I have ever known.) I live in the CWE in a pretty nice condo. I laugh much more than I cry, find joy every day and sadness only once in a while. On those rare times when I do get angry it is usually when involved in a fight I need to be involved in. And though not really one of the "good guys" I do feel I manage to be on their side when push comes to shove.

Deb keeps me around.

Pretty good?

"So," my friend asked, "when you get on the boat how will your life be better?"

I had to think on that for a bit, and the truth is I don't know that it will be better. All I know for sure is that it will be different.

And that is the point.

Were Deb and I born 500 years ago we might have been on one of the ships heading for the "New World." (Not that it was new to the civilizations already living here.) Two hundred years ago we might have been in a wagon train heading out to the "New Frontier." (Not that that was new to the civilizations already living there!) A hundred years from now we might have been on one of the "colony ships" heading to Mars or one of the moons of Jupiter. A chance to see and experience a new thing and help build a new kind of living? Why miss a chance to do that?

But we live here, not "back then" or "out there". What we can do is try a new way of living for us; lighter, simpler, more mobile, part of the seascape rather than voyeurs. And we may yet be counted as one of a vanguard, the leading edge of using technology wisely, shepherding energy use and consumption into good living without trashing the planet as we go.

That would be a perfectly good ship to be on as well.

In the meantime we are at the boat for a couple of days. Part of this weekend needs our attention back in the city and we missed being at the lake last weekend as well. So we made our escape to our dockside mini-condo in spite of the sub-freezing temperatures due over the next 36 hours. We will take the chance to fit the new nav station seat / storage box. (Ops, somewhere we measured something wrong. Nothing that 6 inches worth of rework here and 4 inches worth of rework there, along with a new end piece, can't fix. Have table saw - can handle.) Some other odd little task or two might get some attention. This cold and basically alone at the marina, it is best to pace one's self and take a little extra care with every move. Fiberglass gets brittle and water gets cold.

No use breaking a perfectly good ship.

Navionics review

2012-01-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

As Tim has inferred here previously, I follow a lot of blogs in my Google Reader. I've chosen them all very carefully, either for their cruising location, or their ideas, or their knowledge, or their departure timing, or their very helpful financial info, or their honesty, or their expertise, or their photography, or sometimes just for their sense of humor.

Today I was pretty pleased to see a review in one of them for the Navionics software for the iPad, the way that I believe we will end up navigating although, being an Android junkie, we may end up doing it on a Motorola Xoom (gasp) instead. I thought I'd pass the link for the review along to you just in case you've wondered about it yourself. Please comment if you've either tried it already or have done a ton of research on it.

Second-hand sailor

2012-01-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

We are not on Kintala this weekend, moving day for Daughter Youngest and her daughter Kali. With a 3 day work trip scheduled to start Monday and a garage full of Kintala projects, staying in the city just seemed like the responsible thing to do. Days lost to a flu bug, work at work, and real winter temperatures have slowed progress in the shop. March 1 is barely 7 weeks away and the Tartan is far from a working boat at the moment.

Though I am clearly the master of a second hand boat, (or perhaps it is the other way around) that isn't the reason I'm feeling like a second hand sailor. It has been over a year since Deb and I have seen big blue water from the deck of a boat; uncounted days since Kintala was towed home with a shattered drive train. Rope callouses have long faded, replaced by sanding block and screwdriver callouses. I would worry about getting seasick at the dock should a good wind blow, but the lake is so low that Kintala is basically sitting in the mud. She doesn't rock much.

Hard to call one's self a sailor when one doesn't go sailing and has a boat that can't go sailing. Ah but there is hope. Winter-broken-shallow lake-season in St. Louis just happens to be the same time of the year that cruisers uncounted head for the islands. Their first hand sailing stories fill blogs galore, night passages, narrow channels, anchoring hilarity's, sandy beaches and clear warm water!

None of them are on new boats either.

Many more recipes

2012-01-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

Just a note to encourage you to click on the Cruising Comforts tab above to visit my new sister-blog. I've added quite a few more recipes to it this week. By the way, all the folks in the marina are quite happy with the new blog as they get to benefit from all the recipes.

This week, a terrific fish chowder for the cool weather, some tender cheddar drop biscuits to go with, and some nutritious muffins (yes, I kid you not they really are) for the morning after.

A walk in the park

2012-01-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

Literally. A state park borders the marina. Deb and I walk it nearly every day we are on the boat. In many ways this morning's sojourn was just another meander past the empty camping spaces. A few red squirrels scampered here and there and except for the distant roar of an air boat, (sorry - I hate those things - I know they are perfect for swamp lands but there are no swamps around here and they are just obnoxiously loud) it was quiet with a warm sun and a barely moving cold breeze. We watched tens of thousands of geese fly overhead heading south, marveled at a giant swirl of sea gulls maneuvering over a shallows, (never seen them do that before) and talked of how five years have passed since we first came this way. And somehow the whole experience took on an ethereal glow - another touch of magic carried in on a cool northwest wind. This is a good place to be and a good time to be here.

Even as we work on getting away. You see before the walk, as we were stumbling our way out of the v-berth pretty late this morning, (It was a long day of flying yesterday on very little sleep - really!) the chat was of being "boat bums." We decided that "boat bumming" wasn't really a matter of endurance so much as the experience of the moment. Any time one has 30 seconds or so to be on the boat doing exactly what one wants to do, one is indulging in boat bummery. That "doing" could be lounging around in the berth, starting up a pot of coffee, fixing something that needs fixing, standing a night watch, or tapping out words for a blog; it doesn't matter so long as the doing of it is one's own choice and it is being done on or around a boat.

The trick is to string those 30 second bits into minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. Right now we manage day and long-weekend strings. We have managed week-long strings in the past and will get to month and year-long strings as soon as we can.

The goal to be, not just boat bums, (though that is a worthy goal) but to be EXPERIENCED boat bums; EXPERT boat bums; to be counted as among THOSE MOST EXALTED of all boat bums...

Cruisers.

Plan B people

2012-01-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

Deb and I follow a fair number of cruiser blogs (Deb more than I). Some are far, far ahead of us, seasoned citizens of the sea who long ago forgot what it means to have a land base. Others have just recently cast their dock lines, are justly proud of having made their escape, but are still learning their way. There are a few following us. Just starting out on a 5 year plan they jinn up spread sheets and get subscriptions to every sailing magazine under the sun. They know where they want to go but getting there is still mostly mystery.

And a few are like us, right on the verge of taking the plunge but catching a heel at the last moment. Housing prices tumbled, jobs went away, savings accounts took massive hits, unexpected little ones came along, (kids or grand kids); 5 year plan A's subject to events beyond any one's control. Plan A's abandoned, plan B's put into play.

Inevitably that means a departure delay. (If we got away on time it would still be Plan A.) Our plan B adds another year and Kintala will likely set sail minus some systems I had hoped to install. Others will add 18 to 24 months and may start out with a different boat altogether. Plans for circumnavigations may morph into winters in the Bahamas. Winters in the Bahamas morph into coastal cruises.

Plan B people have learned a valuable lesson early, things never work out as envisioned and sailors must be flexible to reach the ultimate goal. We are also a pretty hard-headed bunch. If plan B doesn't work we will invent a plan C, or D. I have to admit that it feels like we are grinding our way off a lee shore in a heavy blow. (Not that I have ever ground my way off a lee shore in a heavy blow - but I have read the books!) Every tack we make seems to put us bow into the wind, on the verge of loosing control and getting shoved back onto the rocks. The danger is real. Every penny we have saved in a lifetime of work, every dime invested in the house, vacation money and time, is tied up in this effort to go cruising. It is an all-or-nothing deal and (with all due respect to NASA) failure is always an option.

2012 will be the year of Plan B people.

Home Sweet Home

2012-01-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of the holidays, at least according to the government's calendar. We have all of our Christmas decorations put away so the kids have more room to play, the remnants of the Christmas cookie supply is safely stashed in the garage in a cooler so as not to tempt us unless we really want to threaten the post-holiday shape-up, and our moods are settling into Missouri long-winter survival mode.

We had a good visit in Pittsburgh the past 5 days with family that we don't get to see often enough, including my brother-in-law who I haven't seen in nearly 10 years and my all-too-quickly growing niece who is a gem by any definition. We enjoyed some hearty debates with my brother and sister-in-law over religion and politics, something you just can't do in the Midwest without offending someone, so it was pretty refreshing. Of course, that would be hearty debates set against the background of a magazine-display quality room, crackling fireplace, and the smell of spiced tea and hot chocolate...The weather cooperated with the Z-car and didn't dump any snow on us the 1300 miles we traveled, and other than having a pretty much constant low-grade headache from the excess sugar which we're not used to, we seem to have come through without the typical holiday traumas that are associated with long-distance travel.

We stopped at the marina on the way back to the city and were greeted with winds gusting to 45 and some light, fluffy snowflakes between the gulls. A friend of ours was kind enough to turn the heater on our boat so it was warm and cozy to greet us. We spent a nice evening with the same friend laughing over a very old showing of The Office and a long, wonderful night in the V-berth. This morning I'm feeling very refreshed and ready to tackle the next 3 months of boat work with a vengeance.

It's good to be home.

The Top 10 Best Things About Winter in a Marina

2011-12-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up to find a very heavy frost coating everything in the marina. It was so thick I almost thought it had snowed. It was incredibly beautiful, the sort of sparkly, twinkly beauty that my two granddaughters love to have stuck to every single thing they wear / touch / play with, but it was unfortunately one of those things that you just can't catch the beauty of with the lens of a camera. This is what the dock box looked like:

I can't say as I'm exactly looking forward to the next two and a half months, but I can say that I've managed to find quite a few good things about the cold weather, and in the spirit of a few other blogs that I frequent, I'll add my own "Top 10" list - The top ten best things about winter in a marina.

The ice and frost are incredibly beautiful on a sunny morning.
There is much more wildlife in the marina to enjoy. The Great Blue Herons are much more approachable, letting you get within a few feet before they utter that horrific prehistoric screech and take off. The mink are not so approachable which I'm pretty sure is a good thing.
The hot shower in the bath house is almost as good as sex.
Sex is better in a pile of warm quilts :)
It's cool enough to do a lot of baking in the boat.
The inside of the boat is really cozy with the smell of cinnamon bread wafting out of the oven.
There's no rush to get up and get to the list of activities so we almost always get 8 glorious hours of sleep.
The Boat Chore List is not quite as pressing.
You get pretty close to the few other crazy people staying through the winter.
Let's face it - Hot Buttered Rum tastes much better when it's miserably cold outside.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T12:36:00.000-08:00

Deb and I gave ourselves a Christmas present - we came out to the boat. In the last couple of days there has been Christmas dinner; the family gathered to enjoy watching the little ones open gifts; Grandpa T built Lego castles and Match Box car garages, we took walks in the sunshine, and the two littlest ones took turns falling asleep at my shoulder. I'm sure families all over the world had a Christmas at least as good as ours, but none had one better.

This morning the girls all needed to be with other parts of their families for Christmas day. Deb and I were invited - and sent a plate of cookies in our stead. I enjoy big family gatherings. In fact we will probably be at another one next week with a trip back east. This Christmas morning though, we decided we wanted to be at home. And for us that means Kintala.

As expected the marina is void of other humans. The gulls keep watch on the docks while the occasional line of geese wings by overhead. They are getting a late start south this year. Understandable, it is nearly 50 degrees today. I spent a good hour or more just sitting in the cockpit watching the gulls and enjoying the motion of the boat in the west wind. Were Kintala serviceable we might have headed out for a sail today. Then again this is looking to be a pretty perfect day just as it is.

This evening I'll lift a Hot Buttered Rum in the hopes that your Christmas day, where ever it finds you, has been as good as ours.

New Recipe

2011-12-20T19:58:00.000-08:00

There's a new recipe posted over on my Cruising Comforts site for Maple Pumpkin Muffins. Great Christmas morning breakfast!

There's also a terrific recipe for Hot Buttered Rum Mix at the bottom of the same post. Mmmmmmmm

Almost winter

2011-12-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe that winter doesn't actually start for a couple of days yet. We have seen a skim of ice on the water around the boat. The parking lot is full of boats on the hard while most of those left floating are gathered together in a "bubbler raft". Deb and I arrived at the lake Sunday morning for breakfast...there were 8 of us. By afternoon there were four; Deb, Emily, Joel and myself. Actually the temperatures for the last couple of days give no hint of winter's impending arrival; it was 50 degrees at the lake yesterday, more of the same today.

Joel has been rebuilding the engine on his boat, got it running the other day, and decided it needed a break in cruise just as the sun went down. So off we went for a little putt; his newly refurbished engine purring like a content little kitten; the lake all to ourselves. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon the week before Christmas.

With the holidays nigh it is hard to tell when we will make it back to Kintala. By the time we do it is likely winter will be in full swing. Out in the shop at home the v-drive awaits final decisions and assembly, the hatches are back and being assembled, and a new seat / storage area for the nav station is under consideration. One thing I have learned from my few years as a sailor; winter projects are a good thing - helping the time go by until spring - getting and keeping the boat in good shape. With so much to get done this year I'll not begrudge the cold. In fact I kind of like it. Much as I enjoy the folks at the marina, there is something unique and special about winter, and the few souls who hang around here when the snow flies and the lake freezes solid. I like them. I like being one of them.

Almost winter.

Couldn't have said it better

2011-12-19T08:06:00.000-08:00

A cruising friend of mine sent this to me because he knows how well Tim and I work together.

pink and blue do not belong here*

I couldn't have said it better so I'm passing it along. Thanks to Kyra at S/V Nyon.

Just not right

2011-12-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

As a non-sailor, when you think of sailboats, you immediately think of pristeen aquamarine water, blue skies with puffy white clouds, and swaying palm trees. THIS is not what comes to mind:

The only cool thing about the ice is the zinging sound it makes when it cracks as you step off the boat or walk on the dock. But since we can't go anywhere anyway we're doing our best to enjoy the beauty (and to stay warm). Here's Kintala's winter home. She's the one with the white covers.

In the meantime we spend copius hours watching the
antics of the seagulls as they skitter along on the ice...

and pray for Spring.

Sunday morning

2011-12-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

If you believe the propaganda machine most of the human population spends Sunday mornings sitting in the church of their choice to get the week's marching orders, via a Divine messenger, directly from god his own self. This, some like to boast, is particularly true in the US of A which, we are told, is a Christan Nation. None of this is remotely true of course.

Most people, even the ones sitting in church, don't take marching orders very well. (Though some do, and are an endless source of trouble for the rest of us.) Most of us are not even sitting in church, let alone a Christan one. Accepted reports suggest that, at most, less than half of America's population is sitting in a pew this morning. More detailed examinations suggest that number is far less than half, perhaps even less than a quarter. So for once I am a member of the majority. This Sunday morning, like most, finds me sitting on the boat. If there is a god out there somewhere who wants to tell me something, he (or she) knows where to find me. Any yet...

To climb out the companionway this morning was to be greeted by air that was cold, almost brittle in its clarity, with barely a breath of wind. A skim of ice has invaded the marina over the last couple of cold nights. The gulls are finding places to stand on the water. In some places the ice is even thick enough to support the pair of mink that call this tiny harbor home. What little wind there is tugs at the top of the masts, moving the boats ever so slightly. Just enough actually, to make little zinging noises as the ice gives way. The human congregation in this place numbers exactly eight. Five of us who live (and work on) our boats virtually every weekend with the hope of one day casting off the dock lines for a long voyage. One spends most Sundays here. The final two are office manager and live-on-sight marina manager.

Like nearly ever Sunday morning we gather for the community breakfast - eggs, sausage, turkey bacon, juice, Deb's home made coffee cake, and lots (and lots) of coffee. It all happens without a boss, without an order given, no lists, no programs, we make do with what has been brought. I am useless in a kitchen while cooking is taking place, but clean up is a well practiced routine that is my offering for the morning. After a last sip of coffee we drift off to various projects for the day. Tonight the congregation will number even less, 3, perhaps 4, those of us who don't need to be to work until Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning, who will spend one extra night snuggled against the cold in a v-berth, happy to be where we are.

Far better than a church, it is what community, and good living, was always meant to be.

I love it around here.

Nightmare in drive train land

2011-12-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a bad day for progress on Kintala's drive train. Mr. Joyce of Westerbeke did find an engineering drawing for the coupler and is mailing it to us. This is good news. A visit to a local machine shop suggested that the cost of getting the coupler made may end up in the area of slightly outrageous but not murderously stratospheric. News on the bell housing was not nearly so promising. Mr. Joyce could provide us with a part number, but... Regret I do not find that casting being available any more.

So the search is on for a Westerbeke P/N 020943 bell housing lying around on a dusty shelf or in a wrecked hulk in a salvage yard somewhere. Such a find would be a wonderful thing but I get the feeling the odds are about like those of hitting the lottery and ending up sailing away in a brand new 40' catamaran.

"Get a new one fabricated," you say? We asked the machine shop about that as well. Murderously stratospheric doesn't even come close to describing the price quoted. It would easily cost more than the new v-drive unit itself, and may be more than the v-drive and tranny costs combined! And the fact is I understand the price. Rent time on a CNC machine, hire an operator expert enough to reverse engineer a part like a bell housing, and then have him spin out a nice shinny new one? That's pretty much the highest tech stuff on the planet.

So I went to bed last night in a serious funk. Maybe being at the boat with bed being the v-berth shook something free, maybe my 40 years of fixing broken stuff was rattling around in my subconscious, maybe I'm just getting tired of this whole debacle and decided enough was enough; but somewhere in the dark reaches of the night a thought logged into my mental message board waiting for me to check it in the morning.

Just what, EXACTLY, is wrong with the bell housing? So I got myself out of bed and sat down with the bell housing for a long look-see. After all, the bell housing went out still attached to the old v-drive several weeks ago, covered in grime and surrounded by mangled bits of material. Amid all the other carnage the housing was just another chewed up bit. Walter machine insisted the part was trash; Westerbeke suggested the part was trashed based on the pictures, as did some other people with admitted expertice. But how bad is this thing, really?

Well, the surface material is chewed to snot around the inner mounting bore. It looks bad. It looks really bad. But so what? The area damaged carries no operating load nor is it a seal or bearing surface. What if it didn't look bad. What if I dress it out, clean it up, check it carefully for real damage like cracks, and if I find none slap a little fresh paint on it and call it a day?

Since this project started I have been told by experts that the boat couldn't have been put together this way at the factory; (it was) that someone modified the boat in the field and that lead to the failure; (no and no again) that there was no engineering information available; (its in the mail) and that various assemblies were damaged beyond repair. Maybe. The tranny was surly trashed and the v-drive was a collection of shredded parts; each could have been overhauled but the cost would have exceeded a new unit. But the bell housing? Maybe its time to take my own opinion about this project over that of the experts?

If I can't find one at a reasonable price, this one is going to get some TJ TLC and go back in the boat.

Last night the drive train nightmare raged unchecked. This morning the solution, and the end, may well be in sight. Next week we will see; but I'm starting to get the feeling that the boat is almost back under control, that the Retirement Project is close to being back on the track.

Warm Tootsies

2011-12-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

It appears that Old Man Winter has decided to pay us a visit after all and Thursday night the best we could do on the thermostat after running the heater all night was 62. Not bad, but still a little chilly on the feet after a few hours of the lake water temperature seeping through the fiberglass. Friday morning we took a trip to the local hardware store and bought us some temporary dorade plugs to stop the rush of wind into the salon through the very effective vents (can't afford the real ones right now and they were missing from the boat when we bought it - go figure...) and then began installing our new foam winter flooring. I recently saw a post on Sailing Simplicity on staying warm in the winter where she detailed in video the process of putting those 2 x 2 foam interlocking panels on the floor of their boat to help insulate it against the New England cold and I decided that was a pretty smart idea so I made a trip to Lowe's to purchase some. We spent the cold morning cutting and fitting around the table mount and the various shapes of the cabin and were rewarded with not only a very comfortable floor for stocking feet, but about 6° increase on the thermostat over the afternoon and evening. We did run short for the galley floor and the aft cabin so I'll be heading back to Lowe's this week for another package. I admit it's not the most appealing color, but it is winter gray so I guess it's appropriate. In the Spring we'll be able to pick it up and store it under the mattress in the aft cabin. For any of you staying on your boat in the cold, this is worth the few pennies it cost us. This project definitely gets 5 stars.

Little Christine

2011-12-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of changing Kintala's name to Little Christine - after the 1958 Plymouth Fury made famous in the Steven King novel. It isn't that I think Kintala is possessed and out to get even for some horrible event in her past, (hence the "Little"). But I am beginning to wonder if some bald-headed-middle-aged-white-guy might have bounced her off a pier or something and she has mistaken me for him.

The aft cabin door is a little warped so it wouldn't quite close and latch, something I only noticed as it has gotten colder and we try to keep the living in area of the boat a little warmer. So I tweaked the door on the hinges just a jiggle, pulled it shut from inside the main cabin and is good, fits just like a door should.

But now it wouldn't open like a door should; in fact it would not open at all, is not good. It wasn't jammed in the frame. The latch wouldn't turn. So I grabbed me a screwdriver to take the latch out, glad there actually was a screwdriver in the main cabin. Most of the tools are in the aft cabin. In fact all the tools are in the aft cabin save for one or two screwdrivers. Is good. Only to discover that said latch comes out from the other side of the door, is not good. Said door which is the only door into the aft cabin, is not good times two. No use trying to climb through the hatches even if there were hatches and not screwed and sealed down pieces of plywood over where hatches used to be. Not even my smallest grand kid could fit through those holes; hatches or no. Is so not good.

There is a panel in the starboard lazarette. Maybe it opens to the back of the pantry? New plan. Out to cold cockpit. Open lazarette. Remove mounds of stuff stuffed into lazarette. Pull panel. Take out all the food. Remove shelves. Climb through. Is good?

New plan works right up to "pull panel." The panel, which has a hand hole in it and gives every indication of being able to be removed, actually can't be removed from the lazarette side. It could come out into the aft cabin IF I could get through the door, which, if I could, would mean I didn't need to remove the panel. Is not good.

But wait! New new plan. Into lazarette, feet first, OVER water heater, lay on back, around 'fridge wiring, wiggle, over compressor, tight fit, let out breath, legs through lower access panel into aft cabin, limbo, butt and hips into aft cabin, take breath? Is so good! IN, without having to bust down door then add broken door to fix-it list.

Discover that door is simply locked. (Is good none of the grand kids managed to close door during one of their many visits. That would be instant crisis in Mom land.)

Unlock door, is good?

Is not good; still wouldn't open but at least deck monkey on proper side to disassemble latch. Latch out. Door open. Problem? Latch plate in door frame needs recessed.

Okay, will be good, after breakfast.

All this happen before deck monkey even brush teeth this morning.

I think I heard Kintala chuckle.

Little witch.

Staying above the water

2011-12-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

It is most probably, kind of, almost a sure thing... Deb order the V-drive. Added to the cost of the tranny, engine mounts, and damper plate; it will take most of a year's worth of paychecks to fill the hole in our credit card. Given that there are still some big buck items that we feel need to be on the boat before she takes to blue water, (auto-helm and dodger at least, even if we must fore go solar panels, wind generator and water maker) it is likely Kintala will be a lake boat for a while yet; Deb and I lake sailors.

The good news (I think!) is that as I get older years seem to go by quicker. 2013, 2012, by 2015 they will have blured together into "that time we spent getting Kintala ready to sail". This winter will go by slow. All winters do; particularly since we have taken to sailboats. (The first winter with Nomad felt like it would never end. All we wanted to do was get back out on the lake in our little pocket cruiser.) There will be work to do though, and that always helps the weeks go by. In fact, I'm not sure I can have Kintala ready by the time spring rolls around. Tranny, V-drive, engine mounts, shaft alighnment, couplings; its not like I am an expert (Yet!) at any of this stuff. I tend to plod away, kind of one-bolt-at-a-time, trying to make as few mistakes as I can manage.

(Deb came across some pictures of a georgeous Tartan 42 that has storage cabenits and shelves in the aft cabin where we have a rather useless quarter berth. Plodding though some serious wood work this winter anyone?)

I was afraid the dealy would do nasty things to my head, my outlook on the world, and my general sunny disposition. But one of the things that drew me to sailboat living was shedding a bunch of needs, living a little more intune with the world, and not being so burried under schedules and expectations; including a schedule to get on the water and the expectation of being on our way by some certain date. We are going to get there; "there" being just a little further away than we had thought at first.

Cruising Comforts

2011-11-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

If you check out the tabs above, you'll see a new tab titled Cruising Comforts. Since I cook so much on the boat, I've been asked a good many times about the food I prepare, how I do it, and the recipes for it. I was initially going to do a page only for recipes, but I decided to start a new blog for all things related to cruising comforts and to link to it on that tab. I've only started it today so there's only one post, but keep your eye on it as there will be many recipes and cooking tips there as well as other tips to help you bring the comforts of home to cruising.

Enjoy!

Which way are we going?

2011-11-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

Sailors know that it is possible, indeed usual, to have the bow pointing in one direction with the boat going in a slightly different direction. Given the state of the wind, point of sail, tides, and characteristics of a particular hull, it is even possible to be pointed the way one wants to go while blissfully unaware that the track over the ground is almost the exact opposite direction.

The V-Drive man says he can build us up a brandy new unit and ship it our way. After hours of painstaking research he found a part number for the Westerbeke custom fabricated coupling that will allow a Hurth transmission to be joined to his Walter V-drive. He seems pretty pleased with his discovery and I am thankful for any hint that there is a way out of this drive train nightmare. There is only one tiny little problem...

Westerbeke never heard of it.

In the mean time the powder coat people have figured out a way to finish up the hatch frames. And it will only cost me $200 more to have them fix their mistake than they were going to charge me to do the job in the first place. Even better, they can have the painted (not powder coated) hatches in my hands in a couple of weeks...which is the exact same amount of time I was originally quoted. (Though it actually took them almost a month to screw them up.) I gave the "go ahead". A couple of grand for a tranny, another couple of grand for a v-drive, the cost of engine mounts and a mystery coupling yet to go; what's another couple of hundred bucks between friends? At least I'll have something that I can actually put back on the boat.

This is what passes for progress in Kintala's world.

And yet...

I had to leave the marina early last weekend to spend a few days flogging the jet. It was a good few days, some rain, a few low visibility approaches (one during a night landing - always a good time), even a little ice to knock off the boots. The day after I got home family arrived for the holiday, kids and grand kids fill the house and a good time is being had by all. But I woke up this morning and thought to myself, "Man it has been a while since I've been home."

For all of the problems when I think of home I am thinking of the boat. That seems like a good thing. Still, its going to be a long, cold interval until spring arrives and we find out if we are making any real headway in the direction of living aboard; or if Kintala is going in the wrong direction.

Mmmmmmmmm

2011-11-18T16:59:00.000-08:00

Not too bad for an itty bitty boat oven, no? This weekend we're having a yacht club Thanksgiving get-together and it was a good day to stop and bake a pie and enjoy having the boat smell like cinnamon and nutmeg and bubbly apple yummy-ness.

Dare I say progress?

2011-11-13T18:56:00.000-08:00

Another work weekend on Kintala. Every weekend is another work weekend on Kintala, so that isn't a surprise. What is a bit of a surprise is how well it went, and how good I feel about how well it went. For, truth be told, if I honestly thought that these last few weeks are the best that "living aboard" has to offer, I would be planning my escape back to the land of the sane and solvent.

The tranny is actually hanging off the back of the engine, installed. All of the mount brackets are wire brushed, sanded, cleaned and painted with Ford red "ceramic enamel". (Not sure what "ceramic enamel" is, actually. But it sounds hard and looks good. Sadly, 80 grit and a rattle can, and the brackets look tons better than my powder coated hatch frames.) All of the exterior teak is scrubbed and has one last coat of winter protection. Some plumbing has been replaced. (I didn't like what I did the first time so I did it a second time. You do that too, right?) Both Kintala's and a friend's boat's holding tanks are empty. We helped move a couple of boats to their winter slips. Deb did a bunch of work in the clubhouse, getting ready for next weekend's before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner here at the marina. (She thought it would be nice to get the "hard core" few together for a Thanksgiving dinner, figuring most people would be busy with the holidays coming up. So far 40 people have signed on, nearly half the club membership.)

Lastly, some trim that goes around the still missing aft hatches has been sanded and refinished. While loading a fresh square of 220 on the palm sander and humming quietly to myself I was struck by just how much I had enjoyed this weekend. I'm not much on mysticism; the limits of my spirits-uality is what proof is being poured into my glass. But I got to thinking that there would be only two differences between heaven, (if there actually be such a place not filled with religious fanatics) and this day. The first would be that every day in heaven would be as good as this day. And the second would be that everyone would get the chance to enjoy their life as much as I am enjoying mine.

Useless Settee Meat

2011-11-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read Tim's previous post, read that first so you can get the whole picture. He spent the weekend thrashing on Kintala, I spent the weekend wrapped up in a heavy wool blanket on the port settee with chills, a pounding sinus headache, and a streppy-feeling throat, sipping on copious amounts of lemon and honey tea. It was every bit of effort I could muster to make it the 4 feet into the head to deal with the copious amounts of lemon and honey tea. I did manage to grab the camera on the way to and from the settee and try to take a couple pics of the whole process, so I guess I wasn't completely useless.

Not even one crumb of rubber left here...

Wanna take a guess as to whether these are the original engine mounts????

Brand new mounts courtesy of Torreson Marine and their ultra-efficient shipping department.

Lots of rubber here...

The aft starboard mount was pretty accessible

Not so much on the port side...

The forward port side was infinitely more challenging.

It took an impact hammer for the forward starboard mount.

A massive thrashing

2011-11-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

Many, many moons ago my second job in aviation was as a mechanic in Beech's experimental hangar. One of the crew had been at Beech since WWII, starting as a teenager building control surfaces for fighter planes; Kato. I don't know if that was a first or last name - it was the only name anyone ever used - it was what his I.D. badge said - and one wag insisted that he had seen one of his paychecks and it was made out to "Kato" as well. Anyway, he was the best sheet metal mechanic and aircraft systems man I have ever seen. (You couldn't get him to touch an engine - Kato figured engine work was for grease monkeys.) We were working on an air conditioning system in a King Air, pulling a vacuum on it to see if it was leaking. The pressure wasn't falling fast enough for me; I wanted to start taking things apart to find the leaks.

"Son," intoned Kato from his seat by the service cart, "you gotta look at the good side 'till your sure you can't do that no more." Kato knew that pulling vacuum on a new system could take a while as the water vapor was pulled from hundreds of feet of tubing that had been open to the humid, mid-western summer air. He was teaching me not to jump to the worst conclusion until there was no other choice.

I put a major thrashing on Kintala this weekend. (A pleasant change from having her put one on me.) After a little less than two days her engine is sitting snug on 4 brand new engine mounts. A job that turned out much harder than it sounds. Over the years I picked up a lot of tricks when it comes to fixing things. This last weekend I was down to my last one for disassembling corroded parts. The forward starboard mount was frozen solid in the engine case, one false move could easily lead to a cracked case and a near terminal injury for both bank account and cruising plans. I ended up splitting the bottom (and utterly frozen) nut off the stud with an air chisel, then taking to the top nut with a 3/8s impact driver, jack-screwing the stud the wrong way (up instead of down) just enough to break it loose. Then I hammered it down and jack-screwed it back up a few more times; and finally worked it out of the engine. Heat and lots of penetrating oil were included in the recipe, and all of this accomplished in the few inches available with the engine hanging from a chain-fall supported by the boom, the boat rolling in wind guests to 20+ knots. (Air tools and portable compressor supplied by Schmidty - who I'm going to write in for President of these United States; though he is way too smart to take the job.)

Mostly I got it done by taking one deliberate step after another, looking at the good side and not facing the worst until it actually happened. Which it never did. It was a close call though. A slip of an air chisel or a hammer blow falling in the wrong place? Had it been the forward port mount that was frozen there would have been no choice but to pull the engine out of the boat for access. (Another major setback though not as bad as punching a hole through the case.)

Instead, what I had feared would be at least a two-weekend-endless-thrash (that had several opportunities to turn into a total disaster) turned out to be a two day job-now-out-of-the-way. I'm also going to keep reminding myself to look at the good side until I'm sure I can't do that no more. The mounts are done. There is no reason to think installing the tranny will be anything but routine. We haven't decided what to do with the V-drive yet, replace or overhaul. Either one will have to wait a while until we pry a spot open in the budget, but there is no reason to assume that will prove impossible either. The big question is still the coupler - and for now I'm going to assume we will figure that one out as well. We are still walking right along the edge of the cliff here, but it does no good to keep looking over to see how far the fall.

p.s. If I ever hit the lottery I'm still going to buy me a NEW boat. I know they come from the factory screwed up; but at least the screwed up parts won't be frozen together by 30 years of corrosion.

Riding the waves...

2011-11-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

Not ocean waves, not for a while. Not even lake waves, that will be a while yet as well. No, I mean emotional waves which, I must tell you, is a novelty to me. But this V-drive thing is getting to be quite a ride. Yesterday I was convinced we were completely sunk. Walter machine just didn't have any good news and about had me convinced that getting Kintala underway again was going to require nothing short of mechanical magic. The tech there is convinced that our boat isn't factory and that there is simply no good way to put the parts back together again. And neither the Tartan factory nor S & S (who designed the Tartan 42) seems to know just what engine / tranny / V-drive combination was originally installed. (I'm still baffled as to how that can be. Does the factory just have the assembly line go pull what ever bits happen to be laying around on a shelf somewhere and stick them in a boat? I admit I used to build go-carts that way, but really?) The yard that did the inspections has been less than encouraging as well; "You can't expect us to look into the future, can you?" (Well, YES, actually! Why else would I pay you to inspect something?) All that the broker seems to know for sure is that the boat should float. (I'm starting to suspect more lawyers and nasty letters are in my future.)

I was about as discouraged as I have been since we started The Retirement Project. Retire? I was starting to think we would be lucky to avoid bankruptcy.

But this morning Deb went into full Internet Sleuth mode and soon turned up pictures of at least three other Tartan 42 drive trains. Two are very similar to ours and one is down right identical. Clearly Kintala is factory after all.

Even though they didn't have the exact information I needed, the email from S & S included the following; (I sent them these pictures. Ours in the one on the left before I started ripping things apart.)

The two V drives you sent look identical with the exception of the mounting. It looks like they added some hefty mounts on yours, probably for vibration reasons. It also looks like the attachment is simply handled through the small bell housing between V drive and gearbox. I can’t imagine what the big deal is with Walter that they can’t assist you. Perhaps they had a bunch of these blow up. In any event I would probably try to put it back together as it was (obviously with gearbox and V drive rebuilt) and you will undoubtedly get many years of continued use out of it.

Sorry we couldn’t be more help.

Best Regards,
Bruce Johnson
President and Chief Designer
Sparkman & Stephens

I decided that Mr. Johnson has it right. If its factory that means it worked once upon a time, is working for other people right now, and I can surly make it work again.

Tranny, V-drive, coupler, mounts...

Put the boat back together.

Make it go.

Go.

So in the morning we will head out to the lake and I will start changing engine mounts... Getting it all done will still be a massive amount of work and cost a hand full of SBUs. It probably can't be finished much before spring. But there is no reason to think that it isn't going to get done. And that has me feeling much better now.

It's the little things

2011-10-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

In light of all the recent difficulties we've encountered with the boat, one of our friends-that-we-haven't-met-yet (aka a fellow cruiser whose blog we follow religiously) said, "Stay the course. In a year the past will be well in the past. It'll be worth it, I swear." It was a perfectly timed comment for me because if I have one prominent character flaw it's that I tend to be overwhelmed by things in the present and forget the end goal. You would think I would learn this lesson since I've had it presented to me often enough over the years. I remember while I was getting my pilot's license I was having difficulty with "plunking" the plane down on the numbers at the end of the runway instead of smoothly gliding across the numbers and softly touching down. My instructor (who also happens to be my ever-so-patient husband) pointed out that I was focusing on the numbers to the elimination of the rest of the runway environment. He noted that I should possibly see what I could do to keep the whole runway environment in my field of concentration and pointed out that this would allow me to settle onto the runway with a modicum of grace.

This train of thought caused me to take a break in my internet search for new engine mounts for the Westerbeke 50 and to go sit with Tim in the cockpit for a while enjoying the last of the colorful fall leaves and the seagulls' antics while diving for the little silver jumping fish all over the marina. I was thinking about how when I reflect on my 55 years, all of the things that I think fondly of are the little things. Everyone has the big events - birthdays, marriages, anniversaries, job changes, moves, illnesses, deaths, but it occurred to me that it's the little things that define a life, the accumulation of all the little choices and experiences that fill out the framework of who we are. Pictures popped into my mind - of me and Tim's Gramps standing at the kitchen counter peeling apples for an apple pie, his favorite...of the kids running and jumping in the piles of oak tree leaves on a perfect fall day much like this one...of my mom singing Amazing Grace while she was folding laundry...of all three of our kids plus spouses sitting around a table after dinner with us laughing till our sides hurt about some ridiculous thing that had happened to one of us...of hundreds of white pelicans soaring over Nomad in a perfect line...of laying in the V-berth on this very boat, rocking gently and hearing the halyards way in the background making better music than any wind chime.

So while our dream may be just a tiny bit tarnished at the moment, and obstacles seem to be piling up in front of us, I'm going to be sure to take some time to enjoy the little things because in a year it will all be in the past and I'm sure it will be worth it.

Parade of failure

2011-10-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

We went for a long sail yesterday with Jeff and Co. on Gail Force. It was a romping good sail until late in the afternoon when Jeff was forced to fire up his engine to bring us home. Speaking of engines...

Deb did a lot of research this weekend piecing together parts of Kintala's history and trying to figure out how we ended up where we are in spite of our best efforts; badly broken boat, falling behind schedule, and struggling to figure out how to pay for it all. She got a lot more done this weekend than did I, though I did manage to unbolt the mount plate from the old tranny and bolt on the new one.

"There," I thought to myself with the last bolt snugged up, "the tranny is ready to install...at least we are making a little progress."

Not so fast, Buckwheat. Something went bad somewhere that started this whole cascade of shattered metal bits, and Deb pointed me to the right place based on something she had read on failed V-drives...engine mounts.

The moment she said it all the pieces fell into place. And, since there are a lot of big parts already removed, I could get a pretty good look at the starboard side forward engine mount - which is totally and completely hammered. You know how old, really old, really old and used up rubber gets, brittle like cheap plastic, chunks breaking off with black dust spread around here and there? It would be nice if the engine mounts on Kintala looked that good.

Here is what my survey says about engine mounts: "...the engine mounts are in good condition securely attached to the longitudinal stringers..." Just to add insult to injury, here is the comment from the mechanical inspection: "V-drive fluid/oil - Level, Color, Smell - ACCEPTABLE, Signs of debris, NONE"

Here is where we stand. The engine mounts are toast; installing a new tranny and V-drive would be a complete waste of time and $$. New mounts go in first. Next will be a new damper plate, since the tranny warranty is void without one. Then (Buckwheat) the tranny can go on. The V-drive goes in last and all I have to do then is figure out how to line all this stuff up so the shaft runs true.

Moral of the story? The next time you get a survey or mechanical inspection done on a boat make sure someone looks at the engine mounts. Better yet, do it yourself. If they don't look freaking perfect get a big, big chunk knocked off the going-in price or walk away and don't look back. Your bank account will thank you.

My gift to you...no charge.

p.s. To be fair an item on the the mechanical inspection "repair" list included replacing the engine mounts. When I asked why, given that the survey explicitly stated that they were in good condition, I was told the adjustment studs were corroded and it would difficult to alien the shaft next time that was needed. That same list included repairing the engine pre-heat system which, in fact, works perfectly. The mechanic doing the inspection didn't know how to use it.

Road Trip

2011-10-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

Fedex came today carrying a long tube and a heavy box filled with charts and guide books. You see we happened on a terrific deal on most of the charts and guides we needed for our trip from Chicago to Nova Scotia via the St. Lawrence. A friend of a friend just finished the trip and was looking to offload the materials in preparation for loading up on Caribbean charts for his trip farther South. It carries with it a bit of the excitement of The Road Trips that we used to take in the car when we were younger. Stacks of maps to look at and plan from, the trip unknown and full of promise. In spite of the fact that we don't have a working engine at the moment or a transmission to power with that engine, it somehow makes me feel just a little better to have these stacks of books on my kitchen counter and piles of charts on the kitchen table. The charts aren't new, exhibiting some markings on them from their previous owner, and somehow I feel connected to them as a result. Brand spanking new charts would mock me I think, their blank margins and possible routes waiting for the pencil, but these charts smell a little of the ocean and teak and diesel and salt, and the slightly stained and dog-eared edges do yield a bit of promise.

And the beat...

2011-10-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

...goes on.

A puzzled V-drive guru called today. It appears that the drive coupling flange isn't actually one of theirs, sooo...at the moment it is a complete unknown as to how this particular V-drive got mated to this particular tranny, when, and by whom. Why the drive was so badly trashed is partly explained though. It seems the mystery tranny coupling provides a good bit of the support for the drive gears. When the bolts in that coupling started to fail the drive gears started to move, grinding against the case as they rotated around. (No clue as to why the bolts started to fail.)

Since boats are not required to have maintenance log books it would not appear there is any way to know who did the modification, or why. Eventually we will figure out some way to make it work, though no word yet on this unit being fixed. We may still be required to pry loose a SBU or two for new. All of which brought up an entirely new train of thought.

If the $$ flowing into Kintala were water she would plummet to the bottom faster than the Titanic. So it amazes me how many seaworthy boats are out there, cruising on a modest budget. And it is no wonder shore side dwellers think all sailors must be rich, or at least were rich when they got into sailboats. Its kind of like an old boss of mine used to say, "I know there are millions of dollars in aviation, I put them there."

I know the feeling...

Slogging against the tide...

2011-10-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

"Your hatches are done but didn't turn out too well."

My first thought was, "Well, then they aren't done yet, are they?"

When one is powder coating cast aluminum, one must be careful to pre-bake the part to prevent out-gassing. (Something I thought I knew and verified with a 10 minute search on the Internet.) One would think an outfit calling itself "Performance Coatings" and claiming to be experts in powder coating would know it as well.

Apparently one would be wrong. As a result, one ends up with hatch frames that look like they have been painted with non-skid; really ugly gloss-black non-skid. Honestly, I have done better paint work drunk, outside in the wind, with a rattle-can.

The sad fact is I'm not even too surprised. This entire experience of buying Kintala and trying to get her seaworthy has been a parade of incompetence. A welder who couldn't weld, a surveyor who didn't, a mechanic who missed a disintegrating drive, a rigging inspector who couldn't tell a good rope from bad, why would I expect to find a painter who could paint? There have been exceptions; UK-Halsey, Cameron Marine, the folks who made the mattress for the V-berth. I certainly hope the V-drive people join that short list, but truth to tell I'm not holding my breath. I fear the tranny / V-drive repair is many, many moons from being completed.

I would admit to much of this being my fault if I was trying to get things done on the cheap, going with the lowest bidder, haggling everyone over a penny here and a dollar there. But we haven't done it that way. Instead we have tried to find those with the proper credentials, the right capabilities, and good reputations; hoping to get what we pay for. It is an approach bred of spending thousands of hours miles above the ground going ridiculous speeds - spending an entire working lifetime betting my life on the expertise of others. Countless others have made that same bet on my abilities, and do so every time the cabin door is closed on my airplane.

It is an approach not working very well in the sailing world, but we have no choice but to keep trying.

Just like the painter.

Random thoughts...

2011-10-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

We did get to go sailing; Thor and Ulli taking us out on their Tri for a really nice sail in light winds. (Six knots in five worth of wind, not bad!) Both Deb and I spent time at the helm, a few King Pelicans coasted by to show off their flying skills, and we floated back into the marina just as the wind died away altogether. It was fun. (Deb left her camera on Kintala and was disappointed to have missed some great shots.)

News of Kintala's busted innards spread through the marina family and virtually everyone stopped by to offer words of encouragement. Many also shared words of disparagement based on their own encounters with marine surveyors, mechanics, and boatyards. (Even Schmitty our resident mechanic - who also offered guidance and advice whenever asked and loaned tools without question when the one I needed was back at the house. Thanks! It would have been an impossible week without the help.)

For the record let me say that I suspect there are more boat mechanics out there like Schmitty than like the hack who "inspected" Kintala. Mind you, I can't PROVE that, but I do suspect...

After a week living on the boat, even if it was a week of unrelenting mechanical effort, it was hard to pack up and head back to the city. It helped to remember that work resumes in the morning, and work is what I trade for SBUs.

As much as I do enjoy my work, and as good as it will be to get back in the sky for a spell, this week also reminded me that not having to work is better than the best job there is. Just why is it that people who make a million or two (or eleven) in exchange for a years worth of effort hang around for a second year? Take the money and run (or sail), that would be my advice. Before I call it a night I'm going to lift a glass to all of you who have already managed to point your bow offshore and go.

A big bonfire is a thing of beauty on a cool fall night. A pile of pallets makes for big bonfires. While the fire burned some of the assembled assembled in the club house and gathered around the big screen TV... apparently there was some kind of game going on that involved a St. Louis team. Not sure what they were all cheering about...

Finding and fixing all the leaks in the pressure side of a water system modification can take longer than installing the mod in the first place. (A chunk of hose and a couple of worm clamps? Really?)

Finishing a home project takes at least two trips to the parts store; finishing a boat project takes at least three.

Experience tells me putting parts back on is about 3 X harder than pulling them off. It is likely to be a long, cold winter.

For all of the effort and progress this week, I'm still feeling a bit ambivalent about Kintala. Right now it isn't clear if she IS The Retirement Project or just slowing our progress to being where we want to be. No choice for now but to keep throwing parts at this thing and see what works out.

What did you do...

2011-10-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

...on your fall vacation? On Monday we pulled the V-drive. On Tuesday we pulled the transmission. On Wednesday we pulled the head then fabricated and installed a new piece of floor. On Thursday we installed the pump (hardest part of the job) and ran new waste hose. On Friday we built up and installed a way to use water drained from the sink to flush the loo (saving boat water AND keeping lake water out of the holding tank), and plumbed in a deck wash line while we were at it. Then we put the inside of the boat back together so it looks like a boat again, not a work shop. (Getting the pressure side of this new system to stop leaking was the second hardest part of the job.)

All week the weather was Mid Western Fall Ugly - high winds, gray skies, rain and drizzle, blustery with constantly falling temperatures. At first, still recovering from jaw work (i.e. taking lots of drugs), with Kintala rocking and bucking at her dock lines, shoulder deep in the bilge or shoehorned into the head, there were times when I wasn't sure just which way was "UP". But by the end of the week I didn't even notice. This weekend? Supposed to be two days of Mid Western Autumn Perfect - clear, cool and with just enough wind. Maybe someone will have pity on us and take us sailing? I could use a break from vacation.

Getting a Head

2011-10-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

From day one we knew that Kintala was going to need a new Throne in the Head. Green fuzz was growing out of seals, the base was water damaged and deteriorating (and storing stink), and we couldn't keep the water level down in the bowl. Weeks ago a new Lavac system landed in our garage and went to the top of the work list; only to be bumped by leaking hatches that ended up at overhaul, then bumped again by the trashed V-drive, that also ended up in overhaul (we hope), then bumped a third time by the demise of our transmission. Today though, with nothing but a big hole in the bilge where the V-drive and tranny used to reside and no pressing deeds to be done in the engine compartment (fingers crossed), swapping out the head finally got started.

Bye Bye old head

Hello beautiful new Lavac Popular Manual Head

Not finished, not yet. In a lot of ways the work is really a two person job stuffed into a one person space. So mostly what got done today was getting the old unit and associated hoses removed and the new base built. Originally that base was going to be 1/2" Starboard, but the more we looked at it the less comfortable we were with the idea of it carrying the expected loads in the expected environment. As it turns out Schmitty had ordered a Corian piece to use as a bow seat on Alcestis; a piece that turned out to be a serious case of overkill in both size and weight. Our Starboard was perfect for his use, his Corian perfect for ours, and so a deal was struck.

Kintala may not have a V-drive. She may not have a tranny. Her hatches are still covered in plywood and duct tape. Take a seat on the Throne though, and your little fanny will be supported by the finest, one-inch thick, custom cut and fitted piece of Corian that has ever found its way into a head.

When we finally do get to go, we intend to go in style!

V-Drive Blues

2011-10-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Not so much a case of the blues, maybe a case of the flu, or even pneumonia? A few weeks ago when the new engine noise showed up I said something about it sounding like the V-drive, maybe the transmission, but probably the drive. Silly me. It is both.

The racket we heard as Kintala drifted to a stop in the marina last weekend was the V-drive disintegrating into a housing full of chewed up parts and 90 wt gear oil gravy steeped in metal shards. No big surprise there, though it has been a long time since I have pulled such a blowed-up bit out of a machine. When the drive went it took the output flange of the transmission with it. That flange is part of the shaft, which is apparently as deep into the transmission as one can delve. So the transmission is toast. We just ordered a replacement for a few pennies less than two SBUs. (SBU = Standard Boat Unit = $1000.) The V-drive folks say they may be able to overhaul their unit, so Deb is out shipping it. I'm guessing they will open the box, snort and laugh and poke each other, and then we will buy a new V-drive to go with our new tranny. Total for getting Kintala under power once again? If it comes out any less than 4 SBUs it will be a surprise.

Today has been a day full of learning new things; how to take a V-drive out of a Tartan, that I need a special wrench to get the lower port mount bolt of the transmission loose (I believe I have just such a wrench...at home...transmission removal to be completed at a later date.) and, if you move the prop drive shaft just 1/2 inch forward once it is free from the V-drive, lake water will will spew into the bilge at an astounding rate and startle the snot out of an aircraft mechanic. (The shaft is now securely fixed in place so it can't move again!)

When we bought this boat I tried as best as I know how to avoid just such a development, spending SBUs on inspections and repairs done by reputable people and organizations. This one though, is really getting me close to being an unhappy camper. One look was all it took to know that this V-drive has been making shinies for a long, long time. When it started making noise it wasn't telling me it was getting ready to fail. No, it was telling me that it had failed a long time ago and was about to implode. Since I have no history with this boat I missed the memo. But the son-of-a-wanna-be-wrench-bending-bozo who changed the gear oil the last time, and probably the time before that, and maybe the time before that, should have gotten it highlighted and in bold print. And tell me, just what does a mechanic do during a $600 mechanical inspection, count the sockets in his tool drawer? Polish screwdrivers? Juggle spanner wrenches? If only I had known then what I know now I would have paid him an extra half a SBU to take a dribble of V-drive, tranny and engine oil, rub it between his finger and thumb, and hold it up to the sunlight. I fear though that even if he had, and as a result had driven a quarter inch shard of tortured metal into his skin, he would have completely missed the relevance of the blood flowing down his finger and called the drive good to go.

Since it would be impossible not to be discouraged at getting burned by so-called experts, I'm just going to go ahead and be discouraged. One never knows how things will end up but the thought is that this is going to delay our departure some. What was a "to-do" list has exploded into a major work order. Getting it all done and then paying for it is going to take considerable effort - and maybe a little more time than originally hoped.

So I'm not going to waste any effort trying to keep a stiff upper lip, look at the good side, think positive, or any other such idiotic make-nice chatter. I'm just going to accept discouragement as part of the deal, grab a rag, and get back to work.

p.s. The tranny came out today. For the mechanics among you...getting to the problem bolt required; a) pull the starter, b) pull the shifter arm off the shaft, c) remove 4 nuts and pull the shifter housing, d) pull the bottom two shifter housing studs out of the tranny case. (There isn't near enough room in there for a stud puller, which was okay since I didn't have one at hand. Two nuts locked together did the trick.) Then a 9/16 crow's foot on a long extension was just enough leverage to break the bolt loose without harming the engine case; which was the real concern since the tranny is trashed anyway.

p.p.s. I promise to be in a better mood when stuff starts going back on the boat that actually works.

Boat Bum

2011-10-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

We spent some time on the lake this weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) with Friend Jeff and Gail Force; and it was good time too. (There were a bunch of other friends on the boat over the two days as well; Bill, Ann, Joel, Sharon, Mark, Thor and Ulli.) Winds ranged from 12 to 20 knots with gusts touching 30 once in a while. The lake lumped up with nice little rollers and white caps, we tossed spray off the bow and down the deck, and generally romped around the lake with other die-hard boats bashing upwind and then flying back down. (Gail Force clocked 8+ on the gps for extended runs off the wind - reminding us of why someone thought up the idea of a sailboat in the first place!)

While on one of those fliers with Deb and I standing in the companionway enjoying the ride, she allowed as this was really all she wanted... to be a boat bum.

"Good news," I replied. "We are burning through cash like we have some, Kintala is broken down and tied to a pier, she has bits and parts scattered everywhere waiting to get fixed, with plywood in her ports and dock line knots taking permanent shape. Pretty soon winter will arrive and we will be down in her salon huddled around a space heater trying to stay warm (with the bath house a cold walk away in the middle of the night), and we are begging rides from friends to get out on the water. If we are not boat bums yet we are getting mighty close."

Once upon a time I was a respectable man...

Actually that's one of those descriptions that is pretty close to true without being very accurate, and we both got a chuckle out of it. Kintala is on the injured reserved list at the moment, but that isn't terminal. We are bumming boat rides but there is nothing particularly new about that - I'm always bumming boat rides. And one of these days I suspect people will be once again bumming rides off of Kintala.

With the flying schedule slow this week we are going to take an extra few days and concentrate on actually working. I hope to pull the v-drive come morning and get it shipped off for overhaul. The hatches should be back from paint next week along with new glass. Building them up for install will start soon. The new head is on the boat. (Still in the box but on the boat!) I spent most of today putting another coat of teak oil on all the deck wood, getting it ready for the harsh winds of winter. (More jaw work done last week is slowing me down this weekend. I'm good for sitting on a boat working sheets or standing at the helm. Upside down, elbows deep in the bilge? Not so much yet.)

But you know, I really am looking forward to being a boat bum some day.

Luck, first cousin to The Magic

2011-10-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

We had more than our share of The Magic this weekend, so we really had no claim on a streak of luck. But it worked out that way anyway.

Yesterday's big do at the marina was a wedding. Dennis, (he of mast climbing fame and owner of the marina) traded "I do's" with Petra, charmer from Germany and Sister of good friend Ulli (she of Trimaran fame and one time Commodore of the Yacht Club). Ulli's husband Thor is the incoming Commodore - so it was very much a family affair. Part of the celebration was an evening "Wedding Regatta." Some 18 sailboats headed out following Dennis' Desperado, complete with a Newlywed sign flying off her stern. The weather was prefect, the sail was perfect, and a horizon of full sails crossing a setting sun is a sight fit for a wedding.

Kintala was among the fleet of course, but we didn't make the turn for home, ducking into Coles Creek instead. A peaceful night after a long, busy day was just the ticket. This morning we sailed off the hook a bit early since Daughter-who-is-the-youngest was due to visit, bringing granddaughter-who-is-also-the-youngest, for their first sail on the new boat. Ghosting out onto the lake in zephyrs we were greeted by hundreds of King pelicans, hundreds more cormorants, and still hundreds more gulls. It was an amazing sight and we were quite content to drift slowly among them. But time was running out to meet Daughter youngest so we were forced to fire up the motor.

There is a smell that every mechanic has burned into his or her alarm system - that of hot metal being tortured to destruction. I caught just a whiff, but it was enough to set my internal klaxon to blaring. The V-drive was actually being pretty quiet, but I eased back on the throttle and waited to see if we would make it to the dock.

Almost. Entering the marina I dropped the boat into neutral to make the first of two 180 degree turns. That was all the life left in the V-drive. Selecting forward provoked ugly thrashing, clunking noises from below - and that was pretty much that. A call out to friend Bill of Paradise, informing him that we were drifting helpless in a marina full of boats was all it took. Within minutes Schmidty was pulling alongside in "Alcestis" to tug us home, Joel and Gary on board to help. At the dock a half-dozen stood buy to ease a wounded Kintala safely onto her pier - and that was pretty much that.

We could not have coughed the V-drive at a more opportune moment. Instead of being a disaster it was a non-event. The Magic and a wedding, the pelicans and a big dose of luck, all in the same weekend. No one can ask much better than that. Still, in spite of my best efforts it must be admitted that Kintala really is a project boat now; tied to her pier basically immobile, hatches missing, head about to be removed, (and not a moment too soon) sailing season likely over...for the next few weeks and maybe months she belongs to mechanics, not sailors.

The Magic

2011-10-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

Magic is that thing that happens when something pretty amazing happens but no one is really sure why or how it happens. A collection of circumstances, none of them particularly spectacular alone, flow together with some inner state of mind and somehow, everything in the entire freaking universe fits together just like it should.

Magic.

Daughter-who-lives-with-us has a friend visiting from Cape Cod, yet every bed in our little house has some one's name on it. So Deb and I allowed as we would offer her our sleeping place and head to the lake a day early. (Pretty slick, yes?) Once at the lake we decided to cove out for the night, something we have not done near enough of this season. Leaving the pier it seemed like a good idea. A couple of hundred yards from the inlet, mmm...not so good. Hoards of corps bug enveloped Kintala and her crew like some sort of Biblical plague. The starboard side of the hull was literally coated from water line to toe rail. We were motor sailing behind the jib, which itself drew a liberal coating of these nasty little creatures. They squished under hand with every grab on anything, flew into our faces, got tangled in Deb's hair and my beard (the only hair I have) and made hideous splotches of goo everywhere they died. As soon as the anchor sank into the mud we abandoned topside, retreating in the face of overwhelming numbers to the screened-in protection of below. Pretty much the opposite of magic.

Fed, showered and snug in the V-berth the corps bugs faded from memory, and the magic started to fill the boat. Though all of her hatches are missing and the holes filled with plywood, and though there was nary a hint of a breeze, somehow Kintala shed the warmth of the day like a white beach on a clear night. Temps in our berth were perfect for cozying up under the quilt. It was still and quiet and I slept like a dead man; the best night's sleep I have enjoyed for countless weeks.

If there was a more perfect place on this little planet than Coles creek come this morning, I can't imagine where it could be. Apparently there was more magic than could fit in the boat so it flowed out to fill the cove. Fish jumped, birds circled, and the wind started to build from the ESE; a perfect direction for sailing off the hook. So we did.

That same wind must have blown some unused magic out on the lake proper. Over the next 7 hours or so Kintala romped under perfect winds of 10 to 20 knots, yet the waves on the lake never built to anything more than cat's paws. Hard on the wind, beam reach, broad reach, run - from Coles Creek to the dam to Tradewinds, back to near the dam, back to the cove, to the inlet for our marina, then to and fro across the width of the lake one more time just for the shear joy of it all. Kintala covered more than 30 miles today, every inch some of the best sailing we have ever known.

We are back on the pier now. Deb is working on a sail project for a friend, dinner is in the oven, I am fumbling around this keyboard; pretty much an average day when we are on Kintala. But the glow from the magic still fills the boat.

By tomorrow even the glow will fade, leaving only the memory of a perfect day. But that is the way of magic. It is a rare thing and no ones knows the recipe for making it. We all get a bit of it now and again, though sometimes I suspect it goes by unappreciated - a missed opportunity if you will. And it seems to me there is just enough of it going around to keep all of us from going stark raving mad. However it works, the touch of it swept over our little piece of the world today. Maybe it is headed your way tomorrow?

A little lift

2011-10-03T18:42:00.000-07:00

Good friends and long time riding buddies showed up this morning to see our new boat. They went out with us once, many a moon ago, on Nomad, and later on Juno. After a tour of our new digs we very gingerly (the V-drive still making ugly noises) motored out onto a placid and mostly empty lake. The main sail was pretty soaked from dew since we hadn't put the cover on after yesterday's drift, and though the deck monkey (that would be me) wasn't very optimistic, we figured we could at least hang the sail out to dry. We rolled the jib out as well, mostly for the hell of it.

Turned out there was just enough breeze to have Kintala gliding gently across the wavelets. It didn't matter that we were only making a knot or two; we weren't really going anywhere anyway. An hour or so later we were about out of lake and going just fast enough to ease through a tack. Gliding slowly the other way Deb handed a fantastic lunch of Chef salads up from below. We munched and laughed and drank a couple of cold ones...

I'm feeling a bit constrained by our little lake and the items being added to the "to-do" list are getting frustrating. But you know what? No King anywhere on our little planet had as nice a meal as we did today - gliding through placid waters like we were powered by pure magic, spending a day with good friends, in the cool of early fall...even the corps bugs couldn't put a dent in the day.

Kintala has plywood in place of hatches, her new head still sits in my garage. She sports no solar panels, no wind generators, lacks a dingy and a dodger, the auto-helm won't, and her drive chain has a seriously weak link. Sometimes the big water I want to live and sail on seems far, far away. Getting there is taking pretty much all of my best efforts and sometimes I wonder if it will be enough.

Somehow days like today help a little, and salt water seems just about in reach after all.

Falling Footwear

2011-10-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

I am learning to loves me some Kintala. She is a pretty boat, a good sailing boat, and has a lot of potential as a live aboard cruiser. She settled onto our dock as the focal point of the effort to downsize our stash of "stuff" and spend part of our lives living with a little more adventure, a little more freedom, than is considered normal in our society. Be that as it may, somewhere deep in my mechanic's soul was the feeling that this big Tartan was hiding something, that, though we have found and fixed a lot of unexpected issues (which was not unexpected) there lurked a shoe that had yet to drop. Kintala may have finally given up her secret.

Saturday we motored out into the lake to act as the Committee Boat for a lake-wide series of races. We sat tethered to an anchor for hours while a fleet of boats romped around us in solid winds blowing 10 - 15 knots. Good for the racers, a bit of a trial for us since we haven't actually been sailing in weeks. Sunday we were determined to sail. But Mother Earth wasn't paying any attention to our determinations; there wasn't a breath of wind. With her jib poled out Kintal drifted in slow circles managing nothing more than collecting another layer of corps bugs. (I sure hope corps bugs don't live in salt water.) Eventually we gave up, put the sails away, fired up the motor to head in, and put the boat in gear.

THUD.

The sound of falling footwear.

That faint noise we noticed a couple of weeks ago, the one we thought was coming from the engine? V-drive, or maybe transmission, but probably V-drive, and no longer faint. We gently powered back to the marina with me secretly wondering if we would end up calling for a tow. Once home I changed the fluid because we all know that changing the fluid will fix thrashed gears and quiet ugly noises. The stuff that drooled out of the bottom of the V-drive case was full of "shinies", those tiny bits of shaved off metal that mechanics love to see come out of customer's vehicles, (it means a solid couple of days of work and maybe a big commission on parts) and hate to see come out of their own vehicles for the exact same reasons.

I don't know how much such drives cost to overhaul or repair, or how hard they are to get out of a boat. I don't know how much life is left in the drive. Sometimes big chunks of metal grind themselves to death rather slowly, parts that will surely need replaced still having some life left in them. The search is on for expert advise and a plan of action. I fear though, winter is going to include a long, cold foray into the world of overhauling expensive boat bits.

Any excuse...

2011-09-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

The clouds below were packed close together and looked like they might be bumpy, so I switched on the "SEAT BELT" sign and slowed ye old jet down a tad. Once in the overcast the ride was as expected, not bad but not comfortable. Approach gave us a vector so we turned, popped out of one cloud and were RADOME to a dark looking CU about 2 seconds away. "This one might hurt," was the opinion from my new co-captain. WHAM! Yep. In the back coffee and cold drinks were airborne, bodies hit seat belts and heads hit the headliner. The V-ist of the VIPs aboard, a Senior VP no less, caught a flying elbow from his seatmate and got cut below his left eye.

When a Senior VP gets off a corporate jet coffee stained and dripping blood, you can be pretty sure some corporate pilot somewhere is not having a good day...even if the VIP is a really good guy and there really isn't very much blood.

Two days later we flew them home and hit some more bumps, but none as righteous. The group dismounted with smiles and jokes, and all was okay in my little aviation world. We head out again in the morning.

After that kind of week I was looking for any excuse to take Kintala off the dock and do some sailing. Alas, there was nary a hint of breeze the whole weekend. Boats took to the lake of course, but none of them claimed to have found any wind. Winter draws nigh, the work list awaits; I sighed a sigh of resignation and opened up the tool box. By the time we left the marina 4 hatches were removed, holes were covered and rain proofed, the new topping lift was installed, (one trip up the mast) Deb did some modifications in her galley, and I even coped a nap. While talking to a friend about our progress I had an epiphany; there are only two things standing between us and the ocean.

1) Get Kintala ready.
2) Sell the house.

That's kind of cool.

Counting My Blessings

2011-09-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

(Warning: this is a rant and if you're easily offended you may want to skip it. Ed)

If you read this blog regularly you'll recall that last weekend was a work weekend. (OK stop laughing, I know every weekend is a work weekend...) My designated project for the day was to replace the hinge on the hatch aft of the helm station, replace the gasket, and to mount a storage box underneath it for our handheld VHF and whatever snacks the watch person might like to have kept dry on a wet night. As a way of explanation, this hatch used to house a remote VHF on a bracket that was destroyed because the previous owner didn't ever bother to replace the broken hinge so water was pretty much continuously pouring down on the VHF, ergo its demise.

The work went well, thanks to a couple ideas offered by marina regulars on how best to remove the now completely corroded-in broken hinge pin, (Note to self: must have a good vise mounted somewhere in the boat before we leave) and I was in the middle of mounting the plastic box under the hatch when a guy saunters past, stops briefly, shakes his head, and directs the following comment in the general direction of Tim who was working on the hatch over the salon a few feet away, "I would never let my wife handle a power tool like that." before sauntering on down the dock. At the wise old age of 55 I try very hard to keep my feminist opinions to myself, especially in the confines of the marina where we have many good friends. To my credit, I bit my tongue and let Tim rifle off a comment to him which clearly didn't penetrate his very firmly established views about women, but I very much wanted to tell him that I thought it was a miracle that his wife let an a**hole like him be her husband.

I'm a reasonably competent person with tools of all sorts, and the work on Kintala is largely shared by both me and Tim. I credit this almost completely to the fact that I have somehow managed to snag the most encouraging, supportive, respectful partner that exists on the planet, and one that manages to ignore my rantings and ravings about people like this particular dock-walker. I originally wasn't even going to say anything about this particular incident, but 2 days later I read a post by Kathleen over at SailVicarious where she was asking for help in creating a seminar for couples in which the man wanted to sail off into the sunset and the woman was reluctant due to fear, and it aggravated me to the point where I just had to say something.

The fact is, if you're a man who wants to go cruising and your wife is reluctant to go because she's never been encouraged in your relationship to expand her knowledge base and skills, never had the opportunity to handle the power tools, never allowed to voice her opinion, then in my eyes it's just too late to drag her along into what will almost always end up being a challenging situation.

Our 40 years together have been a partnership. We do tend to fall into Pink and Blue roles on the boat sometimes, conceding to the inevitably gender-biased upbringing in our society and what skills we've become proficient at, but when the projects to be done are all Blue, I pick up a wrench and a [gasp] power tool, and dig in. It's not to say I don't fall prey to certain fears about cruising - I believe we all do at some point, but my incredibly supportive and encouraging husband has made it possible for me to be not only looking forward to our departure, but eagerly anticipating it, and for that I daily count my blessings.

Backing up...

2011-09-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

...is the only way to go forward. Those who have been around any kind of maintenance for a while are probably nodding and smiling, humming some version of the song, "Been there, done that, have the T-shirt." After several weekends spent chasing leaks in various hatches, rebedding the two big ones and polishing the tops of the two little ones, they still nagged. Polishing made them look better but also highlighted the fact that the protective coating on the aluminum frames has long since disappeared. Big areas of the big hatches are noticeably corroded and the plexi badly crazed, the plexi in one of the small ones is cracked. Time to regroup and rethink this project.

A shop near our home will clean and powder coat all eight frame pieces for a couple of hundred bucks. The only debate is what color they will be when finished. My choice would be fire-engine red (matching the interiors of the dorads). For the most part sailboats are about as visually stimulating as a chunk of drift wood; faded or off-white hulls with a muted "trim" stripe, white sails, dull grey metal work, brown wood, a near invisible dull aluminum mast sticking up in the air. One could draw a picture of a marina full of sailboats and use only half of the crayons in the basic box of 8. But I suspect the graphic design expert (and reigning Admiral) of our little navy will have a different (and admittedly better) artistic vision. We are pricing new plexi as well.

So at the top of the to-do list for this weekend is pulling the cabin hatches, disassembly, and dropping them off at the painters. Since they will be gone for a couple of weeks the gaping holes will be plugged with plywood and RTV. Kintala will look like a project boat after all...but she will still be able to take to the lake should the fall winds fill in. In a year or so (?) I will be sitting at the helm out in the middle of big salt water and know the hatches are both as stout and as protected from the environment as they can be, and will chalk that one up as a job done right. (Though they probably won't be fire-engine red.)

Half a cruiser

2011-09-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

It has been said that cruising is the art of doing endless boat maintenance while anchored in exotic places. We have the endless boat maintenance part down pat, so I guess that makes us half a cruiser. Then again; if one was born and raised in Tahiti maybe one would think a lake manufactured in the middle of the corn fields of Illinois and filled up with sailboats as an exotic place? Or maybe I can call the pump out dock an exotic port of call? There has to be one like it in Tahiti someplace, doesn't there?

Naw...half a cruiser it is.

It is a malady affecting many at our marina lately. Friend Joel's boat suffered some sort of major melt down. When I stopped by his slip to invite him to dinner he was elbow deep in the engine compartment with motor bits, wrenches, and screwdrivers scattered hither and yon. Over on S/V Gail Force Jeff was laboring to re-bed one of the big side windows of his Hunter. It seems the leading edge has spronged its way free of the sealer holding it in place to funnel as much spray as possible into the interior. Ray is hoping to finish up installing a binnacle, the last task of many this year, and get his boat wet in the next couple of weeks. It may take a sailor to get a boat across an ocean, but it takes a mechanic to get the damned thing off the dock.

Meanwhile, I am struggling to keep S/V Kintala on the "working boat" list and off the "project boat" list. (Is there something like the 90-day injured reserved list in the sailboat world? If not, there should be.) Three days of hatch work resulted in one hatch that leaked just a little less than it did, and one hatch running water through it like I'd hooked up a faucet. We know this because the last mounting screw was being torqued up just as thunder rolled across the lake. The rains came, the rains conquered. Apparently the work done re-bedding the hatch frame disturbed the half-arsed repair work done on bedding the hatch glass done in the dark, distant past by persons unknown. The hatch top is now sitting in the garage and Kintala has a sheet of plastic duct-taped over a giant hole in her deck. I am seriously considering pulling all of the hatches, having them cleaned and powder coated, re-installing the glass (in a non-half-arsed manor) and re-bedding them a second time. Your guess would be as good as mine as to this happening before or after removing and replacing the head and all the associated hoses. (A job that has not even been started yet and is already a morphing into a monster headache.) At the moment the planning node of my brain has hit overload and quit working.

Webster's sense of humor

2011-09-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

hatch¹ (hach)

a. An opening, as in the deck of a ship, in the roof or floor of a building, or in an aircraft.

b. The cover for such an opening.

c. A hatchway.

d. Nautical A ship's compartment.

2. The hinged rear door of a hatchback.

3. A floodgate.

Idiom:

down the hatch Slang

Drink up. Often used as a toast.

The weekend was spent rebedding several of the hatches on Kintala. The V-berth hatch and the one in the main salon have been leaking since we bought the boat and despite repeated attempts to correct the issue by resealing the exterior handles and putting in new gasket material, it continued to rain inside every time it rained outside. Tim worked the 2 larger hatches while I tackled the one aft of the helm seat, a kind of odd place to put a Bomar hatch that locks from the inside when there is no way to access the inside unless you're a child of 3 or a midget, threaded carefully through the lazarette and around the cockpit floor to the stern. It once provided access for a remote VHF radio station, but due to the fact that one of the hinge pins was broken and there was no way to lock it, water did what water does and completely totaled the VHF. As Webster says above, a hatch is a floodgate. So we removed the useless remote VHF and I located a square plastic storage box that fit exactly in the same place, just large enough to stow our handheld VHF and a couple snacks for the watch person and installed it with the help of several mounting blocks. Of course removing the broken hinge pin took half a day as it was a stainless roll pin now thoroughly embedded in corroded aluminum, followed by a trip to locate replacements and my project carried over into the second day. Tim's job wasn't any easier, each hatch taking a full day to remove and clean up, the aluminum frames being as corroded as mine was. After two days of this we were fully prepared to take Webster's final piece of definition "Down the hatch...Drink up" at his word and enjoyed the company of The Assembled at the marina for dinner and various alcoholic concoctions. The weather man is calling for pretty much steady rain over the next 24 hours so we'll have plenty of time to see if our efforts have yielded a dry(er) boat.

Home sweet home...

2011-09-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

It is a bit late on Thursday evening, Deb and I just finished putting the weekend stuff on Kintala. This should be mostly a work weekend; fixing leaks, finding engine noises, putting up the new topping lift. We hope to get a little sailing in as well but we will just let the weekend unfold as it will. It is good to be back on board.

Recurrent training went as expected, though the underlying thought that this might be my last rodeo cast an odd light on the week. If this was my last go-around I managed it without crashing the sim; though I did put a few simulated dings in it. That scenario started with an all engines failure on a night cross country and at 25,000 feet, with an extended glide to the closest suitable runway we could find (Jonseboro in this case). With no hydraulics and a rapidly depleted battery there were no flaps, no boards, no brakes, no TRs, and we had to do a manual gear extension. We thumped it down on a runway but using the emergency braking system resulted in a blown tire, the simulated jet coming to a rest just a few feet short of the end of the simulated runway. Interesting. My new co-driver got the hardest sim session with his all engines inoperative game starting just a couple of thousand feet up after a departure. Against all odds he got it turned around and back down on a runway, though to make it to concrete he had to leave the wheels up and slide into a simulated belly-flopper of a landing. The box makes ugly noises when it detects such an event, but also determined the impact was survivable - the whole reason for the exercise.

The real jet is still in maintenance with a to-do list to rival Kintala's. So far there is no word as to when we can go back to flying the real thing. That's how I managed to squeeze out an extra day for working on the boat. The carp are still this evening, (must be below their minimum operating temperature out there) the heater is much quieter than the a/c, and the V-berth is calling my name. It is good to be home.

A different kind of school

2011-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

Part of the 12 day flying stretch Deb mentioned is the yearly visit to recurrent training for the jet; 12 hours in the box, 12 hours in the classroom. To accommodate the fact that three of us are going this year and all of us need our time in the box, each day will be at least 10 hours long. Our airliner ride leaves St. Louis in a few hours and yes, we are flying on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. I expect it to be a long, trying day of endless TSA hassle; and I really, really wish I was spending the day on Kintala with Deb.

Still, someone else is paying to put me on the road for 4 days and do my best to crash a multi-million dollar simulator; how can that not be fun? We have had a pretty good warm-up to the sim in the last two days of flying. Friday my new co-driver and I (my old one has be recalled to American) entered a hold at PDC to wait out fog, used up the holding fuel we had added, missed the approach and diverted to ALO. Getting back to SUS at the end of the day included dodging TRWs and shooting an ILS approach. Going to the maintenance base at ALN yesterday involved another ILS approach. My new co-driver is a long time pilot and friend who has spent the last year or so flying 747s freighters around the world. (The state of our industry is so fractured that flying 747s that can weight upwards of 400,000 pounds all around the planet pays considerably less than flying a Citation that weights 16,000 pounds around the mid-west. At least, in the mid-west, English is English and the food is tolerable.) I'm thinking we are going to have a pretty good time slogging around in our old Citation.

After a long week it will be good to be back in the school of Kintala and the lake sim known as Carlyle. Projects await, and with the cooler temps of fall the work will not be quite as trying. (Changing the head and hoses in 70 degree weather sounds much better than doing the same in 100 degree weather!) I need to learn more about head sail combinations, particularly on how to fly the bigger stay sail. Right now it isn't even clear if it can be flown parallel to the jib, something I am itching to explore. In fact I was thinking this morning of just how much I have yet to learn. I don't know much about zincs and saltwater, solar panels and wind generators, auto-helms and wind vanes, flag etiquette in foreign ports, picking up a mooring ball (and paying for same), laying to a stern anchor, or what the hell that new noise is coming from the engine compartment. (It popped up two weekends ago and I don't have a clue.)

Long time cruisers will probably get a chuckle out of the things I worry about not knowing. Then again, in many ways I am still a pilot pretending to be a sailor. Airplanes or sailboats, one thing I am pretty sure of is no one ever stops learning on either one.

Peace and Quiet

2011-09-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

It's late Friday night and Tim's in the middle of his 12 day stint of flying so I'm here on Kintala by myself. It's also the end of a day of fog and mist and steady rain in the area so The Assembled are few and the marina is atypically quiet. No 3am party, no party boat loudspeaker, no a/c running 24/7, and even the carp seem to have deserted the marina for wherever it is they go in the fall. The season is clearly winding down.

I spent the day on a canvas job for another marina resident making a window covering for the forward, highly slanted window on a Hunter 33. With some Tori Amos on Pandora, the sewing machine hum and the pattering of the rain on the deck, it was a pretty pleasant day on the boat, albeit just a tad lonely without Tim here. It was my first project using Sailrite's Stamoid fabric, a vinyl-covered fabric that has many uses besides the snap-on window covering I made today. It's very flexible and easy to cut and sew. I was pretty impressed with it. Here's some pictures of the finished product, although keep in mind that it was dark, raining and I took the pictures with my phone.

For those of you doing your own canvas, I highly recommend Sailrite's Press and Snap tool. It was worth every penny I spent on it and then some.

Off to bed. Hopefully it won't rain too much more tonight because we still haven't licked the leaking hatches yet and I'm sleeping under one of them....

Endless days in the School of Kintala

2011-09-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

The wind built all through Sunday night, rocking our little 2-boat raft-up. After a tasty breakfast compliments of Paradise, Deb and I tried to figure out what combination of sail would best fit the conditions. We debated multiple choices; the big and little stay sail, with or without a bit of jib rolled out, coupled with one or two reefs in the main. We were really trying to get it right with the winds steady in the high teens, gusting well past 20, and swinging through 20 to 25 degrees. The one thing I didn't figure mattered was the waves - at 42 feet Kintala is just too long for the short, steep waves that build on our little lake to matter much.

Sailing short handed with the wind what is was we decided to keep it simple. A reef in the main and about half the jib left on the roller was our choice. We handed in our answer sheet, pulled up the anchor, and headed out onto the lake to get our score.

At first it seemed we had gotten it correct. Not an "A+" as we heeled hard with a lot of weather helm, but at least a "B" with some bonus points for pure fun. An hour later though, with the wind building and gusting, our "B" was sinking fast. Rail in the water, helm hard to weather, Kintla was once again struggling to do what we had asked. The bad news was we were almost completely out of control, the good news was we were in the middle of the lake with a bit of room to figure something out and, well, it is lake Carlyle. This season the lake has proved that it can put a hurt on a boat, but one still has to work pretty hard at it, or be very unlucky. We hadn't run out of luck yet, or completely out of ideas. I dropped the traveler all the way to the bottom and freed the main sheet. At the helm Deb forced Kintala up just enough that the mad deck-monkey (that would be me) grinding wildly on the roller line managed to stow away the jib.

We were now pointed upwind of the marina entrance, falling off just a bit would get us safely home. Only Deb had no control at the helm. No matter what she did the bow kept the same heading. Unlike little Nomad, which would sail happily on just the main, just the jib, or just about any combination of the two, Kintala is not a happy boat with no head sail. Playing with the main sheet / traveler moved the bow a few degrees this way or that way, but Kintala was still not taking orders from the helm. Now I was out of ideas, but at least we weren't going very fast. I was forced to admit to getting a failing grade on this sailing test - Deb started the engine.

I should have let a little of the jib back out, but getting it in had been a single-minded battle that left my arms complaining bitterly of lactic overload, with wrists stiff and fingers numb. The flogging sail and flying sheets were a sight to behold, scenes from the movie of "How Not To Do It". (Deb was sure were were about to break something.) My brain just couldn't get to giving back what was so hard to earn. Even better we should have started out with the small stay sail, rolling out just a bit of jib had we needed it. Equally important, when the wind goes above 15 kts put a reef in the main. When its going well above 20 put in two! Thus rigged my guess is that we would have punched easily through the waves still doing at or better than 6 kts, with nary a care in the world.

But we will have to wait for the re-test to find out for sure.

Video and Pics

2011-09-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick video and some pics of the great sailing we had yesterday. It was 22-28 knots and lumpy water and we were unfortunately way overcanvassed. When we started out the day it was perfect for one reef in the main and 50% of the genoa, but the wind kicked up incredibly fast and we were left trying to deal with too much sail. Great lessons learned in a controlled environment.

The Visit

2011-09-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

All I wanted was just enough wind to put the sails up for my three visiting grandkids so I could maybe, just maybe, help them to understand what it is I love so much about this thing we're doing, but then this is Carlyle Lake and on Carlyle Lake it's always either too much wind, or none.

After loading my middle daughter, her very patient husband and the three kids on the boat we motored out to Cole's Creek to swim away the afternoon, hoping that some wind would build by the time we were done so we could sail back to the marina. Four hours of sweltering heat later there was not even a whisper of wind, so we motored on back. After indulging in the scrumptious fare of the annual Boulder Yacht Club hog roast benefit they took off for home and within an hour we were heeling over at the dock under 38kt winds and a tremendous thunderstorm. Ahhh well. We'll have to wait a few weeks and try again.

We did have a wonderful day of playing with the kids on the boat, exploring the cabins and testing out each berth (Mary's favorite is the Pilot Berth), steering with Grampy T (Michael would much rather race a power boat I believe), having noodle races around the boat (Catherine is clearly the winner here), and swimming fast to evade the Grampy Shark attacks. Most of our families think we're just plain nuts selling everything and moving onto 400 sq. ft. of sailboat, but today at least 2 of them were pretty interested in the goings on and very disappointed that they weren't going to get to sleep in one of the rocking berths for the night.


Sailing is cool :)

No...I think I like this one.

Let's see... I like this one.


Picnic lunch under the sunshade

Going backwards is the hardest.


Hmmmm...not impressed with the lake water or the super cool raft boat.


And the winner of the round-the-boat race is...Catherine.


The Grampy Shark chasing Mary

Deja vu...

2011-08-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

...all over again. In Ft. Lauderdale, due to be in Gulfport in a couple of hours. Plane full of VIPs including VPs, people waiting, meetings all scheduled to keep the corporate world going around, reach for the #1 starter button...no ZoomZoom. The mechanic side of my brain shifts into top gear, fingers fly around the circuit panels and switches trying this and re-routing that; but I know it is a waste of time. Zee jet is Kaput.

I think the jet and Kintala have been talking with each other.

When you work as a mechanic broken things are good things, they keep the paychecks coming in, give a person a sense of place. Often people with letters like PhD behind their names are completely mystified by the magic that flows from a good mechanics fingers. But for every happy mechanic there is an unhappy operator. At least I don't have to pay for the parts.

We dragged the jet over to a good mechanic. I'm a good mechanic, but I don't fly around with a box full of tools. (Those are mostly at Kintala these days anyway.) Having had this problem just a few months ago there was a solid suspicion of where the problem lay; but it is always good to verify before ordering expensive bits. Plug in this for that, find a power cart...yep, another GPU bit the dust. (At better than a grand I'm really glad I don't have to pay for this part.)

The VIPs hopped an airliner home. They should be there by now. We are hunting an overhaul / exchange GPU and hope to be home sometime late tomorrow. The rest of the trip will be rescheduled for another day, another try. (For those curious we don't usually buy new parts for airplanes, particularly airplanes that are a couple of decades old. The parts just keep going around and around; off the jet - to the overhaul shop - back on another jet until it breaks again.)

My paychecks come from flying the jet, not working on it. And while working on Kintala is fun (most of the time anyway) sailing it is more fun, and living on it is the goal. For now though, I hope the jet gets fixed in time for me to spend the weekend working on the boat.

Same Project, New Look

2011-08-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

To be quite honest, my eyes were getting tired of looking at white print on blue background so I decided to change up the page a bit. Hope you all like it! Please comment one way or the other.

Tired of being a new-be

2011-08-29T07:52:00.001-07:00

Friend Barry of Juno fame dropped by the lake this week. Barry has been spending so much time sailing a Jeanneau 51 around the Caribbean this season that Juno remains high and dry, up on the hard with her stick lashed firmly to her deck. He had heard about Kintala and wanted to see our new boat, so he dropped by Saturday afternoon. We sailed around the lake, ended up in Coles Creek for another night free of carp chomping on our hull, then sailed around the lake again on Sunday in decent, if not exciting, winds.

Barry is to sailboats what I am to airplanes, a life long enthusiast who can make a reasonable claim at being pretty close to an expert. Sailboats are not airplanes though, and after a couple of days with Barry on board it is clear I am a new-be still. We were headed down wind. Barry allowed as putting up the whisker pole would be a good idea, asked me to keep the jib flogging a little, walked forward and rigged it up. Done. (Last time I tried that I came near to getting skewered and put the pole away for another day.) I paid attention and managed the next deployment with a lot less risk to cabin top, mast, pole and me.

We flew the big reacher. I thought we had been doing a pretty good job of trimming the thing. Except, well, we had the blocks about two feet too far forward. Also, turns out they call it a reacher for a reason. Hard to wind we really need to put on a different head sail. I did try to impress Barry with how well Kintala will point with the cutter rig up. He might have been more impressed had I realized we were hanking on the wrong sail and running the sheets inside the stays wouldn't work. Oops. But hey, I did learn that, when the wind picks up, we can roll up the head sail, fly the bigger sail on the inner forestay, stand the boat up a little and still go hull speed. (I keep telling myself I would have figured that out...eventually.) I also learned that it is quite possible to furl the head sail going upwind as well as down, and doing it that way is a good idea if downwind points one right at the nearby shore. (I was planning on rolling up the sail really, really fast!) And guess what; keeping the sheet tight, back winding the sail just a bit, and popping the clutch will drop a stay sail right on the foredeck. No fuss, no muss.

About the only thing I did do right all weekend was to get on and off the pump out dock. Of course then I botched the approach onto the pier and had to make a second run at it. Good thing they write me checks for driving airplanes, not boats.

How do you spell relief?

2011-08-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

C-A-R-P--F-R-E-E.

With all the work needing to be done on the boat, and the incredibly well functioning air conditioning unit on her, we'd gotten out of the habit of coving out at Cole's Creek, mostly because we were so tired after the long days of work that it just didn't seem worth it to sail down there and then sail right back in the morning to work again. We had headed out to the marina a day early this week because we had so much catching up to do, and after a sleepless night Thursday thanks to our fishy friends constant tapping and scraping, we plodded through our work list. Come evening, I told Tim I just couldn't go through another night like that and we headed down there enjoying the setting sun.

We watched the sun set, had a good meal, and turned in to the V-berth. As I closed my eyes I nearly thought I'd gone deaf. It was utterly, completely silent, save for the occasional hoot of the owl in the woods off Cole's Creek. It was such blessed relief that we went back there again last night. We woke to the first sighting of the white pelicans for this season enjoying the thermal off the nearby fields, and a fantastic display of nature in the form of a huge hawk diving the lake for its breakfast. It was wonderful to be reminded why it is we're doing this. We decided then and there that no matter how much work we have to do to the boat in the marina during the day, we're heading to Cole's Creek for the evening. Now, can anyone of you entrepreneur types come up with some creative way to use about 10 million marina-dwelling carp so we can work in peace?

Roll the Rope

2011-08-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

From my Eldest Daughter:

"Christopher is out helping Brian take clothes off of our clothes line. Christopher to Brian (overheard through the window): "I need to roll up the rope like Granpa T does."

I like to tell people that I started working on airplanes when I was 13, flying when I was 15, and never amounted to much after that. Hard to tell what my life would have been was there a marina as close to my growing up place as there was an FBO. I suppose I would be worth about the same either way. Start them young, that's what I say.

Monday is supposed to be day 1 of a 4 day, 8 leg, 2500NM run south to the coast, east to the coast, back to the south coast, and home. That big nasty of a hurricane should be well north of where the passengers want to be when they want to be there and shouldn't pose a problem. At least not to me, and not this trip. It does give one pause though. In the not too distant future this is just about the time of year Deb and I hope to be poking around that piece of the world, say the upper third of the Chesapeake or maybe a bit further north like Long Island sound. One of the reasons to be that far north is to avoid things like hurricanes. Where are all the sailboats going to go to hide from this one? Where is the nearest "hurricane hole" to Boston or the Big Apple? Given the track of this thing it seems likely to beat up more cruising sailboats than has any other storm in the history of the world.

With the Monday departure and still being tender from the dental work we decided to head to the lake a day early. I admit to feeling a bit of pressure from the to-do list, having missed getting much accomplished in the last month. I hope to make a furious flog the next couple of days. Odd how little it takes to make the world look a lot better. We are at the boat, there are projects to tackle, "how much will I hurt today" is no longer the first thought of the morning, and my grandson wants to roll up the rope, just like Grandpa T.

I really do want to get Kintala into big water, and run away from hurricanes if I have to.

Looking for a corner

2011-08-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

After the work on my jaw Monday my week went into a slow, but steady, decline. Each night sleep was a little more elusive, each morning the jaw hurt a little more, each afternoon I hoped the next day would turn the corner. By the time we got to the boat Friday any real thought of making a dent in the to-do list was abandoned; no corner yet but there was hope for the weekend. It looked like it might work out. Yesterday the crew from Paradise invited us along for a really nice sail. Realizing I was not up to par they made me designated cockpit ballast - I sat and watched everyone else do the work. By the time we got back to the marina I was feeling good enough to actually join in the games surrounding our big club dinner. (We have a lot of those.) Turning a corner is a good thing.

Part of getting there is doing all the "post surgery" stuff on the list...including taking the meds. Ops. Unknown to me "hydrocodone" is actually generic vicodin; vicodin and I are not friends. This morning, after nearly a week of that stuff accumulating, my system reached overload and crashed.

This list of possible side effects for vicodin include nausea, confusion, light-handedness, hallucinations, fear, unusual thoughts, and convulsions. Yeah Baby! Now we're having some fun. I didn't quite make it to the convulsions stage, but Deb tells me I was within a minute or two of getting a ride in an ambulance. Apparently, just before she started to dial 9-1-1, I started to settle down and eventually fell asleep.

My boss let me take another couple of days to make sure I am actually on the mend, so no flying again for me this week. (Who would have thought a tooth could end up causing so much trouble?) This night I am glad to have really turned the corner.

In Stitches

2011-08-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

Having accumulated a couple of hundred of them over the years, it is my conclusion that stitches are rarely a good thing. Sometimes just a minor irritation, like the 5 needed to attach a bit of flap on a finger. (That E.R. Doc must have been paid by the stitch.) Other times they herald bigger issues, but good? Not likely.

My first stint at being a pin cushion came after tumbling off the swing set my Dad had just set up. (Yep, I started young.) It left a faint scar that still lurks under my goatee. Other bits of .05 handiwork have been needed to re-attach the bottom of my left ear, close an ugly gash over an eye, and seal various access holes needed to install, and later remove, a rod in a badly broken leg. (One of those is high up on my left butt cheek. Calling me a "double-barreled asshole" is really more a statement of fact than it is an insult.) Having gathered up what I think is my fair share, I was kind of hoping to get through the rest of my life without needing any more needlework.

Alas, dental sugary required a couple of stitches to close the hole needed to grind infected bone out of my jaw. Did you know it was possible to mess up a root-canal in such a way as to require that someone drill a hole in your jaw? It was news to me. For the next week or so there will be a bit of thread hanging in just such a way as to tickle my tongue. Odd that, and a bit annoying. But it could be worse.

Anyway, instead of being out flogging the jet to places south or working on Kintala's to-do list, I am crashed in my chair enjoying the effects of serious pain meds. (Actually, I don't really like this feeling at all; which is why I leave "drinking like a sailor" to the experts.) To pass the time and try to ignore the little men hammering on the side of my face I have been reading sailing blogs. One of my favorites states that a successful cruiser should have a concrete objective for the cruise.

Our only "concrete objective" is to get the boat ready and go. After that the plan is to be north of the hurricanes and south of the Nor'easters. I hope that is concrete enough to be "successful."

Oh, and try to avoid getting any more stitches.

Ignoring the To-Do list

2011-08-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Guests on board yesterday included a dog and two young ladies who were more interested in swimming than sailing. Good timing that. Even with her big reacher searching for wind Kintala couldn't come up with enough speed to steer. We motored to Coles Creek where the girls and the dog took happily to the water.

Since yesterday was a play day today was scheduled to be a work day. (Last week's parts finally arrived.) That was before last night's cold front brought perfect temperatures and stiff winds flowing out of the north. A steady parade of sailboats filed out of the marina to hoist sails and go screaming across a rumbled up lake...Kintala among them.

As good fortune would have it a host of friends joined us. Once out on the lake Kintala's acting Captain (that would be me) decided that she could easily handle having the full main and reacher deployed in the forecast 10 kts worth of wind. And I'm sure she could have. 20+ worth? That was a bit more exciting. We went honking off across the lake like a boat possessed, nearly dragging a rail, spray flying over the deck, and me wrestling with a massive amount of weather helm. Who knew being so seriously over-canvased could be so much fun? But eventually the helm ran completely against the stop. Kintala didn't round up, didn't bite, didn't even bark very loud. She was laboring to do what I asked, but I was clearly pushing the edge way too hard. The good fortune? Several of the friends on board were serious, accomplished, life long sailors. With their help we managed to douse a good bit of the head sail and get a reef in the main - all without resorting to starting the motor or hurting anything or anyone. It took a good effort by all on board and we spent the rest of the day blasting around the lake under much better control.

So the to-do list is no shorter. In fact we added a bit to it with the topping lift failing half-way though the day. It popped when one of the crew inadvertently grabbed the end of the boom on a stumble; which is much better timing than having it let go when dropping the sail, and thus dropping the boom on some body's head. Here's a surprise, the plastic covered 1/8 cable appears to be badly corroded at the point of failure. Who decided that plastic covered cable was a good idea? In any case we had rigged an extra main halyard during the halyard disaster of a couple of months ago so we pressed it into service as a temporary topping lift.

We break 'em. We fix 'em. We break 'em again.

Bad Influence

2011-08-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

We went sailing again today just to make sure I didn't fold and actually open a toolbox. With light winds and still being a bit sore from yesterday's tacking practice, we elected to fly just the screacher and main. Friend Lynn went along to see what it takes to make a big(er) sailboat go. She owns a powerboat and allowed, by the end of the day, that sailing looks like a lot of work.

The wind was pretty much behind us as we turned for home, so we dropped the main to let the big headsail get a full purchase. We thought about setting the whisker pole and made a half-hearted stab at rigging it. But things got out of hand pretty quickly so we put that thing away for another day. Near the inlet a friend went by going the other way, hard on the wind, and also flying just a big headsail. Deb went to the bow to get some pictures so I turned to give chase and hardened up the sheet.

I'm not a racer. After years of sailing on Nomad I am quite content to let other boats squirt past me like I'm sitting in the doldrums. But apparently Kintala has some thoroughbred in her and doesn't like looking at the stern of another boat. Within minutes I had to pick a side for passing, which is something I don't think I've ever had to think about before. I went low. It would take a truly evil person to go high, sweep past a friend's boat just feet away, and then rob him of his wind. Truly evil...but it was seriously tempting.

Kintala just might be a bad influence.

Truly bumming

2011-08-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

No work got done on Kintala this weekend, none, nadda, not a single blessed thing was fixed, adjusted, repaired, replaced, sanded, stained or polished. We were bumming for sure. We told everyone that, after last weekend's flogging, we had decided to spend some quality time just enjoying what is, after all, a pretty neat boat. (The truth is the parts we had ordered for this weekend haven't come in yet. But we can keep that just between us.)

It was a late start for me heading out for the lake on Friday as there was a small brush-fire at the office that needed tamped down. Once at the boat it seemed proper to just hang around with the assembled and enjoy. Though it wasn't very late when we retired to the boat, for some people there are nights that bring sleep and other nights that don't. I'm one of those people and Friday night was one of those nights that don't. Around 4 am the prisms in the v-berth started flashing; a sure sign of weather inbound. A quick look at the RADAR suggested a short hit, which it was. But there was a ton of rain in it and the parts that didn't show up? That was the stuff needed to put a new gasket in the hatch over my side of the berth. Pressing towels and a plastic picnic table cover into service kept me from having to sleep in the wet spot. Strangely enough, in the midst of the storm I fell asleep...not to stir until nearly 10 in de morning. Still being a bum and loving it.

Deb was long moving by the time I groaned my way into the day. Good wind was blowing whitecaps onto the lake so off we went. Over the next 3 hours or so we tacked the boat 11 times, roughly once every 16.3 minutes. With winds gusting past 20 knots we started the day flying just part of the jib, a staysail on the cutter rig, and put a single reef in the main. Here's what it takes to tack Kintala with all that canvas grabbing wind:

Center the Main:
Take one turn off the loaded jib-sheet wench / put two turns on the lazy sheet:
Tack the boat past a beam reach to get the wind's help in getting the jib around the inner forestay: (This got even more important latter in the day - with dying winds we rolled the screacher all the way out and shook the reef out of the main.)

Get a rough trim on the jib:
Bring her head back up to the wind:
Throw the working sheet of the now back-winded staysail / get another rough trim:
Go forward to get the now windward baby stay and rig it aft:
Cross the boat / get the now leeward baby stay / rig it forward:
Trim the main:
Trim the jib:
Trim the staysail:
Watch the boat go like hell:
Run out of lake / do it all again.

Yep, bumming it for sure.

Finishing Touches

2011-07-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

They tell me it's the finishing touches that flesh out a project, be it the fresh flowers on the kitchen table while preparing a house to put on the market, or the polished brass on a refurbished boat. While we are clearly a LONG way from being done with the Tartan [ed. Yes I know you're never finished with a boat, there's always one more project. We're talking relative here.], we sometimes find it necessary to add some of those finishing touches as we progress down the must-do and should-do lists. The effort grants us some small bit of aesthetic pleasure, some respite from the sometimes overwhelming nature of the tasks at hand. Totally unnecessary and irrelevant to how she sails, yes. But at the end of a day that was spent chasing an elusive leak and knowing you've had the hatch frame completely disassembled and reassembled and it looks just exactly the same including the persistent drip from the corner, it gives you some measure of satisfaction and a slightly more secure hold on your sanity when you can look at the freshly polished teak and Tartan emblem each and every time you climb the companionway steps.

(Before)

What's next?

2011-07-31T20:39:00.000-07:00

As expect this was a weekend of no wind, a touch of rain, and temps well into the 90s (actual stats at this moment; temp 93, dew point 73, heat index 103). With the sun covers in place we started our normal weekend flog. And as normal jobs lead along unexpected paths. We finished the last of the exterior teak (which looks freaking fine - if I can boast on the work mostly done by Deb). A serious run was made at fixing the V-berth hatch leak but all efforts proved for naught. As it turns out disassembling, cleaning, driving to town to look for parts, fixing and reassembling the port side handle won't fix a leak that is due to a main gasket being ancient, stiff, and shedding pieces. (But Your Honor, the gasket leak was at the handle, how was I to know?) That leak is still on the to-do list.

Companionway teak trim and grabrails all done!

Somehow finishing the teak and working on the hatch got linked in what passes for my brain; the badly corroded hatch frames are now completely unbearable. Some experimentation later and we discovered that 1500 wet/dry and a palm sander is the cure for many an ill...only 3 more hatches to go. (And another item added to the list.)

Before...

After.

Deb has been working tirelessly on selling enough stuff to pay for the new head system - which will get ordered this week. Looking forward to having a latest-and-greatest (and hopefully orderless) head system is off-set by a total dread of the work staring me in the face. There is no doubt we will get it done, and equally no doubt I'll be beat, battered and bruised in the process.

The gauntlet has been thrown...

All these projects got me to wondering, "What's next?" Not what project is next (there will always be another project). But right now "The Retirement Project" is this boat. We have spent literally uncountable hundreds of hours grinding on this and wrestling with that, while the sweat dripped off our noses and occasional blood oozed off our fingers. We have been underway, sail and motor, for 38. (Remember that anal logbook thing?) Someday we will transition from, "What do we need to do to the boat," to, "What do we want to do with the boat." Working on the boat will not be the project, living and traveling on the boat will. And the fact is, except for one trip around Long Island and another to Bahama, I don't know much about living and traveling on a boat.

I'm looking forward to what's next.

Counting days

2011-07-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday. It has only been 3 days since I was last on Kintala but I can hardly wait to head to the boat tomorrow. When did I get this attached to being on the water? With trips scheduled to start early Monday morning the city will beckon come Sunday evening, so it will be a bit of a short weekend. We had expected family to be visiting from PA this weekend, but they had a change of plans. The to-do list will be our main companion this weekend instead.

Nothing wrong with that; the work has to get done. It still seems an overwhelming list, but the fact is barely 130 days have passed since we bought this boat, with just 100 or so having passed since she first got wet in Lake Carlyle. When looking back over what has been accomplished since then, well, maybe the list isn't so overwhelming after all? If push came to shove we could flop Kintala into salt water tomorrow and head off. Even with the to-do list far from complete she is now a stout, mostly dry, virtually-all-major-systems-at-least-functioning-reasonably-well ocean cruiser waiting for a chance to strut her stuff. There is absolutely no reason she couldn't leave Port Everglades and set her bow towards the West End. Well, no reason except for being in a land-locked lake in IL and lacking anything resembling serious navigation equipment. Truth though? I'd head out on that trip with a hand-held GPS (or maybe 2) and a paper chart without much qualm.

I am starting to count the days before we might (might I say) head for that salt water...two-hundred and sixty two?

Warning...

2011-07-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

...there is a wee bit of politics in the following...enter at your own risk.

My eldest Daughter, Son-in-law, and grandson Christopher dropped by Sunday afternoon for a short visit. They arrived after the storm blew through that brought straight-line winds that must have topped 40 knots and swamped a sizable collection of power boats who didn't leave "Party Beech" in time. Some rain shafts were still visible around the lake and way off to the east was an occasional stroke of lightning, but the air was 20 degrees cooler and a gentle wind blew out of the southeast. Kristin and family are headed to a new home soon and will not get the chance to be on the boat often, so we headed out for a late afternoon sail that gifted me a moment every grandpa hopes for. On the way back with just our big screacher catching what it could of the following breeze, little Christopher and I settled in on the bow to watch the water go by. He sat in my lap to point out the birds, say "SWOOSH" to the bow wake, and tell me how the wind could make the boat go even though he likes to "run with the motor." Just the two of us on the bow of a sailboat wafting though the last of an afternoon on a little lake.

A moment set against the background of this weekend's violence and hatred and political evil. I really don't know how else to describe it. Cutting funding for programs that provide real help to 10s of thousands, if not millions, of people may - in fact - be necessary. (Or not. I don't actually know, but then again, neither do you.) But without a single serious consideration to ending at least 2 wars and closing what everyone concedes are TAX LOOP-HOLES? Then there is the horror of Norway which turned out to be a politically motivated - no matter how demented - act. How is that not evil at work? At the moment everyone who wants to be president is against something, gay marriage, global warming...the strangest being those who are running for government because they are against government. Isn't that like working to be a doctor because you hate to see people get better? If you did become a doctor, what sane person would go to you for treatment? It would seem much of the power structure of the world is arrayed against finding a magic moment with a grandson. There are countless twisted out there who would gladly attack yours and my little boat and family if they thought it would gain them one ounce of political advantage or a few moments notoriety in the 24 hour news frenzy. There are others who will gladly make our lives harder if they think it will provoke us into voting against the other guy. We sail in a sea of savagery and heartless hypocrisy.

And yet there we were...a quiet, no-one-will-ever-know-about-it, but somehow defiant moment where laughter and pure joy eclipsed an entire world. A moment riding on the bow of a sailboat named Kintala.

The more of us who do things like sail with family, the more we win. Not because we fight but simply because we exist.

Slow motion math

2011-07-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Going slow" is the catch-phrase for this weekend. Fact is we haven't gone anywhere at all, going slow is what we do around the boat and the marina. Various inside / outside projects have consumed the weekend. As everyone knows (with refresher lessons coming about once a week) any boat project will take at least 3 times as long as a similar project not on a boat. Now add the motion-through-molasses of triple-digit temps.

My big project was replacing the interior trim shattered while we were stepping the mast: (((Fit + measure + cut) * 4) + ((sand + finish) * 3) + ((measure + drill + screw + plug + sand + finish) * 3)) + motion-through-molasses = inside of the boat looks a lot better / ass dragging ^2.

Deb got some projects done as well though much of her time was lost in the labyrinth of chain size & type v windlass gypsy. And people say flying a LNAV / VNAV approach is confusing? I got a headache just listening to her describe what she found. We are also trying to decide just how much chain is enough. So far we have heard (read) opinions that range from 30 feet anchor to line rode + how ever much line you like = anchor nealy anywere; to too much anchor chain = 1/0. (Clearly the opinion of someone with a huge boat and a bank account to match. Have you priced chain lately?)

We will figure it out eventually. And we can sit in the A/C while we think about it.

Works for me.

What doesn't work for me is the sheer lunacy that seems to be stalking our world this weekend. From the apparent complete abandonment of the idea that the US government should actually, well, govern; to the heart wrenching attack in Norway; to assaults on birthday and skating parties; I find myself lookout out from the deck of Kintala across a quiet lake and wondering what comes next? It is hard to imagine that things can get much worse, yet every day they seem to do just that. It is a wonder that every sane person on the planet isn't trying to move onto a sailboat if, for no other reason small + moving + distance = smaller + moving target for the nut-cases.

New Friends / Old Friends

2011-07-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

The one unique thing I've found about sailing people, is that you can meet someone you've never met before and within an hour you're old friends. We had the opportunity this evening to take some folks out to Fast Eddies, a very famous eatery in Alton, IL for those of you who don't live near here. These folks, along with their Yorkie, left Minnesota a few months ago and are working their way down the Mississippi to the Ohio River where they will then head off to Kentucky Lake and then South to the Gulf eventually, timing their arrival to coincide with the end of hurricane season. They're doing this in a beautifully restored 1976 Pacific Seacraft, a work of art that is the responsibility of two very talented people. They happened to be stopping in Alton for a few days and a mutual friend of ours suggested we might meet. We had a great meal, helped them with a provisioning run, and enjoyed some Dairy Queen. It was an excellent evening spent with old friends gaining a terrific amount of cruising knowledge and stoking the wanderlust fires. If you would like to follow their progress you can do so on their blog

Susie, Bob, and Tim

The Pacific Seacraft Heron with terrific sunshades

Ship's mate Wicket

Tilt!

2011-07-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

The shower was exquisite; sluicing off what felt like layers of sweat, bug spray, sunblock, and general grime. Just as I closed my eyes to let the water run off my bald head and over my face the shower stall lurched to port, nearly dumping me on my sitting place. Not unexpected, right? Boats lurch. But this shower stall was in the club's bath house, sitting on solid Mother Earth at least 50 feet from the nearest body of water.

It has something to do with shower stalls and long days on the water. Seeing as Kintala had been beating up on us for most of Friday and all day Saturday, it only seemed fair to turn the tables and take her out on the lake. Before departing the pier we pulled big jib off the roller and put up an even bigger screecher that Deb found in the sail inventory. It is a gorgeous sail, looks like it has never been used, and seemed the perfect fit for Carlyle's light, mid-summer, winds. (Someday I'm going to figure out how sails get their names, screecher, reacher, staysail, jib, spinnaker, code zero, drifter...odd.)

Once free of the inlet and with both sails set Kintala started to work her way toward the dam, tacking endlessly against a fitful breeze wafting out of the south. We weren't going anywhere in a hurry but it didn't matter. There are few things better than having no place to go and going there anyway. We were exactly where we wanted to be; on the boat and underway. Hours later and with the sun finally settling toward the horizon enough to soften its relentless assault we decided to start the downwind run toward Bolder. (There was some talk of stopping in Coles creek for a swim, but we decided to keep moving. I'll gladly wrestle the anchor down and up for a night's sleep. Doing the same for a hour or so of swimming? No thanks.)

"Run" might be a bit of an overstatement. Even on her favored point of sail the best Kintala could coax out of the wind was around 2 knots. A distance the jet would cover in about 40 seconds would take Kintala slightly more than 2 hours under sail. So we sat on the boat, observed the goings on around us, (including a ranger boat going by at full song with lights flashing) and drank lemonade for the next couple of hours. By the time we were tied to the pier Kintala had been under way (more or less) for more than 8 hours.

Ocean crossers can chuckle if they like, but 8 hours was enough to give me a case of the leans...at least as long as I was in the shower.

A belt that fits...

2011-07-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

West Marine in St. Charles is a regular stop. Art had a little trouble finding our order because they had the spelled "Akey" as "Hackey". He felt kind of bad about that since, as he put it, "You have certainly been in here enough for me to remember your last name.

"No problem. I'm getting a 30-year-old, 42 foot sailboat ready for open water, we have a lot of parts to go yet."

I've done a lot of projects in my life; home repairs, remodeling and additions. I've overhauled engines for 500cc motorcycles, 540 cubic inch / turbocharged flat 6s and 750 HP turbo-prop engines for aircraft, and V-dub to V8s for cars. In addition to engines there have been landing gear system overhauls, repairs and modifications to flight control systems, and massive amounts of sheet metal and airframe work on various airplanes trashed when their pilots weren't up to the task of that particular flight. Very often the first person to fly said engine overhaul or airframe repair was me. But somehow, getting a 42 foot sailboat ready for open water seems in a class of project all its own.

Today the focal point for the project was the engine "room". I'm not sure why they call it that as the one thing seriously lacking is "room". In any case the good news was the howling noise was the alternator belt. Here's a surprise, someone had installed a belt that was too thin for the pulleys. There were 2 spare belts in a drawer marked "Alt". Right width, but they were too short. Deb found a part number for the proper belt in the manual somewhere, so I drove to Mr. O'Rielys automobile parts emporium and got me a couple.

They were too long.

It seems this boat has an after-market alternator. "Ratserfratseridiotsandtheirtoolboxes." So I took another gander at the too short belt - removed the alternator from the engine, adjusted the angle of this and the dangle of that, fit the belt, reinstalled the main mount bolt, repeated same 2 or 3 times, and got it to work. Mind you, part of the job involved removing the water pump belt as well; it runs forward (aft) of the alternator belt. Fore and aft are a bit confusing on this motor as it sits bass-ackwards in the boat; crankshaft pulley and belts facing the stern, transmission toward the bow, and the drive shaft emerging in a kind of "V" shaped configuration. Not sure why, but a guess would be to get a better angle on the prop. Since the "room" was open, it also seemed a good idea to tidy up some wiring, clean the raw-water strainer, inspect the impeller, check the fluid levels, and do some general "getting to know you" poking around.

With a full day's work on deck teak and the engine once again operable above idle we went on a nice night sail...on a friend's trimaran. In spite of the near total lack of serious wind Thor spent most of the time at better than 4 knots, sometimes touched 6, and once made nearly 8. Light from a full moon danced across the wavelets and was bright enough for us to spot the NO WAKE markers on the way back in. It was a fine way to end a day of working on Kintala.

Slugging away

2011-07-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

Like the pictures say we did some good sailing this past weekend! With no storms in the forecast a chance to get away from the dock just couldn't be missed. By any standard Coles Creek is a modest little cove, tucked away in a small, land-locked lake, with water that (on a good day) boasts visibility measured in scant inches. Yet it remains our favorite place to hole up for a night. The winds helped us off the dock, (once again making me look a lot better than I am) and provided a nice romp under full main and jib. That was a pleasant surprise since there wasn't supposed to be any wind. One had to leave early though. Friends who joined us later in the evening endured a slow drift, but by midnight we had 4 boats at the party.

Come morning the un-forecast winds returned. Deb was at the helm as the sails filled with push, turning south out of the cove and heading for the dam. It seemed a reasonable thing to do given the great sailing. Less than 2 hours later we had gone from the cove to the dam and back up the lake to the marina...less than 2 hours! So we turned around and did it again, though by the second approach to the marina Kintala's big sails seemed to have soaked up all the breeze. Come late afternoon the marina looked like a mirage shimmering in the heat, everything and every one moving in slow motion.

Each time we sail Kintala she seems about 1/2 inch shorter. It no longer feels like the deck stretches into the next area code and I only hold my breath for the last few feet onto the dock. But I'm still struggling with this boat. The "to-do" list does seem to stretch into the next area code. My maintenance log (remember I'm an aircraft mechanic and, by definition, anal when it comes to logs) shows 59 items completed. On the other side of the ledger are 36 repairs, 9 projects, and 13 upgrade or system enhancements yet to be addressed. Each weekend there are still more items added to the list than there are items removed. The A/C controller earned a toe-tag in the middle of last night and the belt squeal is now so bad that the engine can't be run above idle. (Really, the belt started to smoke on the way in - repairs to belt / alternator / pulley / water pump - whatever - will have to be completed before Kintala takes to the lake again. Given my history with this boat, which ever of the above is the most expensive thing will be the thing required.)

My goal is to have Kintala function as a home equal her ability under way. To have her systems stone cold reliable and her interior dry and welcoming (read that as no leaks and not stinking like head). Sometimes I wonder if that isn't a mirage as well. Just keep slugging away, that's the only way forward.

Isn't she beautiful?

2011-07-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

Another member of the marina was kind enough to take some pictures of our boat this weekend while we were sailing. These are the first pictures we have of Kintala sailing so we are greatly appreciative of his kindness.

Perspectives

2011-07-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

Bozo the Idiot of "The Incident" fame got me a bit more cranked up than usual; and I started to ponder that a bit. I suspect we all run across this kind of ignorance/incompetence on a regular basis, I know I do. Usually I shrug it off without much effort, normally even giving the culprit some benefit of the doubt. We all have off days and we all take turns adding a bit of "that was dumb" to the workings of the world. I ride motorcycles on public roads and long ago gave up taking the actions of car drivers as a personal affront. Why the musings of thrashing this particular dim-wit?

Maybe its because his actions were deliberately calculated to do damage to people who had done him no harm? Much like the worm-turd who launched the laser attack on us a few months ago, I just can't get my head around that kind of action.

Maybe its because he boasted about being a 767 pilot and dismissed the idea that I just might be his equal? (A friend pointed me out during the verbal exchange.) Given his clear inability to control his machine, and the questionable character of a person who moons a collection of teen-aged girls, Bozo doesn't even measure up to the student pilots I used to work with at the University. I hope he isn't a Captain on those 767s, and I hope none of them fly over my house even if he is the FO. (Rumor has it Bozo flied for Japan Airways; a carrier with a serious reputation for excellence. If his Chief Pilot had been on one of our boats, my guess is Bozo would be looking for a job.)

Maybe having family on the boat, including a 2 year old grandson, (any of whom could have been easily injured by the wake hit) is why this one is a bit more personal than even the laser blast? It is our nature to protect family first. This guy assaulted mine and there was nothing I could do to protect them.

Whatever it was, it has taken a considered effort on my part to let this one go. The sad reality is that human ignorance is as much a part of nature as thunderstorms and big waves. Gaining a little wisdom (and putting chips in Mr. Vigor's Black Box) comes from accepting that surviving people is as much about preparation and attitude as is surviving the sea. Even though the winds were calm and the lake quiet, we rafted up with bow, stern and spring lines, and set multiple anchors. Short of ramming us head long Bozo couldn't have damaged our boats even though he tried. We put chips in the Black Box, and it paid off almost immediately.

And Bozo? He gets dismissed, a bit of bothersome in the world like snakes or stray dogs. They might bite and are best avoided if possible. What one does if they can't be avoided...well...that comes down to one's own background and attitude. No two moments in life are ever exactly the same, so no one response is ever right for more than one moment. But I will keep an eye out for Bozo's big, yellow, zoom-zoom boat. Some caution is usually a good idea, even when dealing with worm-turd.

Future Sailors of America

2011-07-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

I just had to post some more pictures of my grandson's visit. I'm sure hoping that we're still able and fit to sail some day when he's a teenager and he can come do all the sail raising and sheet winching!

Christopher figured out the companionway pretty quickly

King of the companionway

Even Teddy gets a Coast Guard approved pfd

Don't you love the shades??

The incident

2011-07-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to say too much about "The Incident", but since Deb brought it up...

Maybe 200 feet off the bows of our 12-boat raft was an 8-boat string from another marina. There is a lot of cross-friendships between the marinas, one boat from our marina was rafted up in the other group, so you can imagine the waters between the two were full of people. In spite of the crowd a large powerboat actually nosed its way about half-way between the lines to drop a tiny anchor off the bow on what looked like zero scope. Then the entire crew took to the water, the adults with beverage in hand. Every sailor reading these words knows what happened next, the power boat started to drag directly toward our bows.

Word was passed to crews swimming off the sterns and people filtered forward to ward off any damage; not angry yet as we are getting pretty used to power-boat lunacy (particularly over the Fourth of July weekend). The Captain (henceforth known as Bozo the Idiot) finally noticed that his ride was leaving without him and clambered aboard. For reasons unknown to thinking man he cranked up his mondo motors and stared to back down the entire length of the raft with his anchor still hanging from his bow, completely unaware that he was about to hook onto our anchor lines. Advice offered was curtly rejected and even under power he managed to move ever closer. At that point some of the assembled suggested that he find somewhere else to be stupid. Bozo took offence at the implication he wasn't the best sailor on the lake with his big, pretty, zoom-zoom boat, and the rhetoric from his side of the exchange escalated to the unpleasant. Additional abuse was hurled in our direction from Bozo's drunken girlfriend still floating around in the crush. She was apparently unaware that Bozo-boy-friend had his bow pointed directly at her, engine running, and that a shift in gears would turn her into mangled carp food.

Somehow he missed our lines and got himself back into the middle of the two rafts without chopping anyone to bits. Once there he started the whole process a second time! Yep, he actually drifted down on us again. As you might expect the rhetoric was in full blown hostile territory by this point. The THIRD TIME he did the same thing? A nuclear war of words. Bozo then decided that 12 anchored sailboats were at fault for his display of utter incompetence, threatened to ram the group, fired off a string of insults, powered up and dragged a 3 foot wake directly down our line in a clear attempt to do as much damage as possible. Apparently the people in the water, including a large contingent of kids, were equally at fault for his lack of brains as he put them at serious risk as well. He ended his display by dropping his shorts and mooning the crowd, including that same large contingent of kids.

I am generally an anti-gun sort of person; which is a very good thing. Had there been an appropriate caliber weapon at hand I would have put another crater in Bozo's moon. While I was contemplating massive physical trauma nearly every boater in sight, (including I might add, the other power boats in the area - they aren't all idiots) reached for mics and started calling the park rangers, a few others dialed 911. Literally within a minute a ranger boat showed up. Friend Jeff of jet-ski prowess got near enough to read Bozo's registration number out over channel 16, you could hear it on speakers in every direction. He then motored over to the Ranger boat and pointed out Bozo's retreating wake.

Ranger boats in these parts look like light-weight sport fishing boats...driven by twin 150HP outboards. Bozo's big, bad, zoom-zoom boat didn't have as much zoom-zoom as he thought. In less than a mile he was corralled by, as it turned out, two boats of badged and armed officials. That's the good news.

The bad news is, according to rumor anyway, Bozo the Idiot got off light. No boating while intoxicated charge, though he did get some other tickets of some kind. In any case he will pay a fine that likely won't bother him much, keep his zoom-zoom boat, and probably menace the lake, and any sailboat that crosses his wake, well into the future.

I'm a bit unhappy about that. Bozo didn't do any damage to our boats; we are actually pretty expert at rafting up. He did, however, leave more than a few bruises behind as people down below got thrown around. He also put a lot of people, including a lot of young people, at real risk. He then exposed himself to that same collection of young people, my Daughter, Wife, and 2 year old grand child. I took that kind of personally.

I did not participate in the war of the words. Generally I don't bother talking to fools, am mostly amused at people who can only count to one using a middle finger, and am completely sure there is absolutely no cure for stupid. For the most part I was just enjoying the show...right up until he tried to hurt someone. Now I figure he needs a serious thrashing; the kind that causes a person to stop and think before they start flapping their lips, damage property, try to hurt someone, or bare their ass to teen-aged girls.

But of course no such a thing can happen; we live in a civilized society. And Bozo knows that. No matter how ignorant, right up until he actually maims or kills someone, Bozo has no skin in the game. He ranks, in my mind, as the lowest form of worm-turd on the planet.

We work hard at protecting a lot of things in this country, including the right to spend your money on anything that tickles your fancy, like a big zoom-zoom boat. Unfortunately, one of the things we also protect is pure, uncut, ignorance.

I'm not sure that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Are we there yet?

2011-07-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

My daughter and son-in-law and grandson came to visit us on Kintala this long holiday weekend. They had been here before for the infamous mast raising extravaganza but this would be the first time that they spent the night away from the dock. The original plan was to sail to Cole's Creek Friday night and cove out there and then make the rest of the trip to the dam on Saturday, but due to the oppressive heat (100+ heat index) we opted to stay on the dock and enjoy the air conditioning. Christopher entertained himself with the wheel and added another item to Grampy T's maintenance list, dealing with the squeaking wheel.

Saturday morning we were pleased to sail nearly all the way to the dam before succumbing to the iron genny, a nearly perfect sail. We anchored out in Cove 1 for the evening's festivities and fireworks display and waited for the rest of our crew to arrive, enjoying an unusually refreshing swim in the lake while we waited. Unusual, because the normal depth of the lake at 8ft means that 100° weather turns it into a jacuzzi in no time. Since it's now 20ft deep, there's a cool layer below the warm one and all those folks in the water were really mixing that cool water in. Unfortunately the day's festivities were dampened slightly by the antics of some drunken [insert your favorite derogatory noun here] on a power boat bent on showing a group of sailboaters just who had more testosterone. [ed. Tim will not be so gracious in describing this incident...]

Kristin, Brian and Christopher on the way out of the channel

Christopher's 4th of July swimsuit - he's very proud of it

Teddy stole Grampy T's hammock

Early Sunday morning the kids headed out to the dock so they could drive back to St. Louis to visit with the siblings and their kids. This involved a jet ski ride complimentary of Jeff. In spite of the fact that Christopher had asked for a ride all day Saturday, when the time came I think he was a little nervous because he was clinging on for dear life.

After the kids left we took off up the lake and had one of the best sails we've had so far - full cutter rig flying and doing 6+ kts in 12-14 kts wind. The cutter rig was just what was called for because it got us a knot and a half extra speed and 15° extra pointing - very important when you consider the storm that we narrowly missed. When we arrived at the channel entrance we were hit with a gust front making it impossible to enter so we circled for a while till the initial gust settled down and then made our way to the dock. It was the first time we docked just the two of us but we had several people on the dock to take our lines and it was textbook.

It's been a big jump from 27 to 42 feet but after only 5 times of sailing Kintala I feel like we're adjusting well. My goal post for knowing we've made the transition is the first time we dock the boat without anyone else's help on the boat or on the dock. That's going to take a little figuring because of the cramped space here. This marina was built for 30-32 footers, not 42 footers so the channels between the docks are just a tiny bit too narrow. We're having to learn to use dock lines for what they're intended and I'm spending a good bit of time in The Annapolis Book of Seamanship docking chapters, but I think we'll get it figured out soon. Yesterday, no one was docking without help due to the storm, and some even had a great amount of difficulty even with all the extra help. All in all it was a great day. Good friends, good sailing weather, safe docking...it just doesn't get any better.

Fourth

2011-07-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Kristin, (eldest daughter) Brian, (Son-in-Law in excellent standing) and grand child Christopher joined us for part of the holiday weekend. They are the branch of the family most enchanted by our sailboat plans and they join us whenever they can. Sadly that is not often enough, but whenever they do come aboard makes for a special time.

Christopher has perfected the art of climbing up and down the companionway stairs, which tower nearly 3 times higher than his own toes to nose distance, equivalent to me going up about 16 feet. Pretty impressive for a 2 year old. He also decided that swimming in the lake is about the coolest thing a person can do, particularly when the crews of 12 rafted up boats are all splashing around as well. Ours can be a pretty family oriented marina and this Fourth of July raft-up / fireworks party included a large contingent of participants that ranged from age 2 to 14.

Around 0300 something frightened Christopher and he woke up crying, which woke up the rest of his crew. Kind of a good thing actually, since the wind had shifted, (there wasn't supposed to be any wind) twisting the boats 180 degrees. We had deployed the anchors off the 3 largest boats and played out plenty of rode, but the raft had pivoted around Kintala. She was holding all 12 boats in place. I went out to the cockpit to spend the rest of the night on anchor watch. As the winds picked up and lightning flashed a couple of more shadowy figures could be seen walking various decks. By dawn the winds had eased, the boats had drifted around to their original orientation, and all was well with the world.

By mid-morning Kristin and family had been ferried over to the car by friend Jeff and his wave runner so they could head into the city to visit siblings. Boats motored out onto glassy waters to try and hunt a little wind, Kintala in trail. It turns out we have another item to add to the "fix-it" list; the anchor windlass and the anchor chain appear to be a miss-match. The chain jumps the windlass drum under the slightest load so yours truly started the morning by hauling up the anchor hand-over-hand. (So now I get to learn all about windlasses.) We got it done though and Kintala, Deb and I headed off for the first sail with just the 3 off us.

And it was GRAND! As the winds slowly built we flew the full jib and main, added the staysail, doused the staysail when the winds built even more, came close to putting a rail in the water, made 7 knots in 15 knots apparent, closed on the marina after tacking up the lake, furled the jib without fuss, then dropped the main just as a massive gust front nailed us from the storm we had been trying to outrun. Main under control Deb turned us back out into the lake so we had some room to figure out what to do next. There was just too much wind to make trying to shoehorn Kintala into her slip a good idea. We puttered around in the lee of the point riding the calmest water we could see and watching a second, massive, dark, lighting spitting mountain of a cloud start to roll over the lake from the dam. Things was about to get interesting.

The first storm moved away, the apparent winds died to less than 10 knots and Kintala made a dash for home. Down the lake the white sticks of friends boats were set in relief against the black storm trying to run them down. Waiting friends fielded our lines and we were warped in secure. Deb got the boat closed up while I joined the group catching the incoming fleet. The marina's big Cat coughed a motor just as it turned the corner. A small army of helpers minimized the damage as the boat bounced off of a line of finger piers and sterns, finally corralling Tango in the nearest open slip. Miss-My-Money, Paradise, Orca, and a few others coasted into waiting hands, with Gail Force taking to her slip just as the trees seemed to give way to the winds. The most exciting part of the day came when a boat that had cooked its engine trying to run came charging down the channel under bare poles. Friends ran out into the driving rain to muscle this last survivor home...

...and all was well with the world.

Experts

2011-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Social media, Twitter and Facebook to be specific, don't interest me much. But since I like to pretend to pay attention to what is going on in the world, (at least a little bit) and these are kind of ground zero in a rapidly evolving social revolution of sorts, it seemed reasonable to poke around in the cyber-hood.

There may be places where people are starting up real revolutions that involve teargas, bullets and toppling tyrants; but I haven't found anything near so interesting. For the most part it seems a place of mundane exchanges, a bit of fun, occasional humor, and the odd inside joke. There is one little twist though; everyone, it seems, thinks they are an expert on whatever subject strikes their fancy.

An assumption that can't possibly be true. In a society as complex and fractured as is this one, the fact is most of us are not expert in anything. Usually we manage to be quasi-competent in some more-or-less routine task; then we trade hours doing that task for a modest income. In cyber-space though, everyone seems to know all there is to know about foreign policy, military tactics, economics, history, philosophy...and managing sports teams. It is all harmless really, except when someone parlays talk into gaining a position or assuming a responsibility that actually requires some expertise.

Maybe that's why I like flying, motorcycle riding, and now sailing, as much as I do. Anyone can claim to be an expert in these disciplines, but if the claim doesn't match the ability it is likely the claimant will suffer a quick and completely natural demise. One need not be expert one's self to spot the posers, they are the dead ones.

Of course true experts do come a cropper while flying, riding and sailing. There are real risks involved in taking on sky, sea, and gravity, and on any given day anyone can run out of the thing we call "luck". But the faker with a pocket full of boast tends to come up empty handed in very short order, thus relieving the rest of us from having to suffer their nonsense for long.

Too bad economics and politics don't work the same way.

Looking for The Real World

2011-06-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

Deb and I live in dramatically different places. Part of the week we are inner-city dwellers, noise and motion and lots to do all within an easy walk; restaurants, gym, movies, bars, parks; and the occasional siren, gunshot and petty crime. Our house, uncounted square feet of 3 bedroom - two 1/2 baths - back yard + 3 car garage - is full of love and laughter and storybooks read at bedtime; and crying and winning and temper tantrums of the 4 and 2 and 18 month old kind. We generate dirty dishes and dirty laundry by the mountain and chew through electricity at an alarming (read "expensive") rate. Most days I pack up and head off to work, which often includes an overnight or two somewhere that I reach by flowing literally hundreds of gallons of fuel through twin tailpipes. It is all very urban, very American, very much a "modern" life, and I am very fond of it.

Part of the week we live on the lake, a 20 minute drive from the nearest, and rather small, town. We hear Blue Herons and gulls and cormorants, the closest thing to a siren is the whistle of a passing train. There is the occasional gunshot which we assume comes from hunters working nearby farmland. The most serious crime is when someone spills a drink; otherwise known as alcohol abuse. Our "house" is about 400 ft/sq of Tartan running, when at the dock, on a 30 amp feed. Out on the lake we live off a couple of batteries and a gallon or so of diesel. Our days are filled with manual labor and refining the ancient skill of making a boat move with the wind. There is nothing urban about it, modern shows up mostly in the tools that we use, the fiberglass of the hull, and the Dacron in the sails. It isn't even particularly American. Communities of the like minded, helping each other, working and playing together, are older than homo sapiens and predate any nation-state by eons. And anyway our marina has Germans, Russians, a family from Poland, friends from China, liberals, Republicans, atheists, - hell - we even have a redneck or two on pontoon boats. All are equally welcome and share in the fun. (A decidedly un-American trait at the moment, sure to get worse now that another election is about to assault [insult?] us.)

It is tempting to argue which is the "real" world, city dwelling or boat life? City dwelling is certainly the most contrived, resting on layer upon layer of infrastructure, taxes, politics, policies, police, committees, parking tickets, trash trucks, a dance so intricate that no one person can hope to grasp all the motion involved. Built as it is out of concrete and steal and millions of miles of piping and cable, it strikes me as incredibly fragile. The city relies entirely on human effort and sometimes I wonder if it will last long enough for my kids and grand kids to live there.

There are no such concerns about the water. Lakes and oceans are completely unaware of human effort and will be around long after the cities are gone. Nature takes care of policing up the stupid and inept, policy is determined by wind and wave and tide. Maybe the lake is the more "real" world after all? Maybe that's why most of us flock to the city?

And maybe, just maybe, that's why some of us want to go in the other direction?

Monday...

2011-06-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

...and we are still on the boat. There is no good reason for us to still be on the boat. It is raining - again. The rain is teasing me by dripping through the hatches, reminding me that fixing the leaks is at the top of my "to-do" list while preventing me from actually getting the work done. Usually the only thing that keeps work from being done on the boat is the boat being out sailing. Clearly that is not going to happen this Monday either. Like I said, there is no good reason for us to still be on the boat.

Except, well, we like being on the boat. It is (mostly) dry and comfortable in the salon. The barely perceptible rocking motion lulls in a sense of well-being, and of sense of being in a good place. The thunder and lightning from the dark night have passed harmlessly by and all is well in our small, if a bit soggy, world; a welcome change from the norm. As a culture we are not a very "content" people. There is always something that has to be done, somewhere we need to go, some problem we have to fix, some enemy that must to be vanquished, some group that has to be put in their place, someone, somewhere, who is doing something of which we don't approve, and (for some reason) we are compelled to correct.

We will rejoin that world in a few hours. There will be trips to get done as safely as possible in the weather that prevails, plans to make for the coming holiday weekend, running here and scurrying there. There will be outrage at the idiocy of some political type who is sure god is on his or her side, sadness by yet another bombing where children blow up children at the urging of some demented old lunatic who is out to destroy anything good, and joy from grand children who have yet to be touched by the madness - toddling and climbing, playing games of hide-n-seek and generally getting on their Mother's nerves with an incessant display of energy.

In a few hours...

Yeeee Hawwwww!

2011-06-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

14 knots apparent, 6 knots boat speed on the gennie, the cutter rig staysail, and the main. Those in attendance, me, Tim, our marina manager Schmidty, and a good friend Kacey.

Speaking of ports...

2011-06-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

...Kintala has 13 of them. I did 12, leaving the one in the head opaque. With a stack that high it seemed a good idea to abandon elbow grease and opt for power tools. 1500 wet/dry and a palm sander, followed by polishing compound and an electric buffer, turned out to be the ticket. Each port took approximately 1/2 hour. With replacement parts listed right at $40 per I was "earning" just shy of $80 an hour. I'll take that job any day. Admittedly they are not quite new looking, but from across the salon I can't see any difference. Of course some 6 hours of labor later Kintala isn't any more seaworthy, will not go any faster to wind, nor will she take any larger waves than she would have before. That's okay though, the engine room (box actually) is near the top of the "do this next" list. In there lay mysteries that will make a difference; odd-ball squealing noises, (belt or pump, your guess is as good as mine) water hoses to nowhere, a bedlam of wiring that would make Medusa think she was having a bad hair day; no casual observer is ever going to see the work that goes on in there.

And speaking of seaworthy...there is a ship wreck just outside of the marina entrance. It is a small wreck, a 20-there-abouts something that used to be tied to a dock near Kintala. But she is a wreck none the less; grounded with her inverted hull just out of the water, rudder and skeg ripped away, mast gone. A crew of two took her out sailing last Wednesday, something they did every week. A serious wind came up, (we have had a lot of that lately) boat and crew were overwhelmed and ended up getting pounded on, and eventually skewered by, a tree sunk under the flooded lake. A Corps crew went out to take the crew off so one one got hurt. Some days later the corpse was dragged off the tree and into the shallows near the entrance, we can see the hull from our dock. Word is they (not sure who is "they") are going to pull her over to the travel lift and put her into a cradle.

Odd, one wouldn't normally think of near mortal consequences when sailing on our postage sized bit of a lake. But so far this season 3 boats have come to grief, one heavily damaged on the rocks just a few hundred yards up the channel, another damaged on different (and apparently slightly softer) rocks down the lake a bit, and now one battered to death on a tree. And people give me a hard time about riding a motorcycle...

Projects

2011-06-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

Since today's radar seems to be the weekend norm:

we've been doing more projects than sailing. I installed a new light fixture in the head yesterday when we got here since the old flourescent fixture ballast decided that 30 years was enough and installing a new ballast in a 30 year old rusty fixture didn't seem to make much sense. When the flourescent bulbs wear out we'll get the LED drop-in replacements for it and that should mean that the whole boat interior is converted to LED. We'll convert the exterior when we step the mast the next time or if one of them burns out but it's not worth a trip up the mast just to do that.
   The foot pump water faucet in the galley sink has a slow weeping leak around the point where it comes through the counter and in the process of taking it apart and cleaning the seals and reassembling it and looking for leaks I discovered that there was a leak at one of the clamps on another hose and in the process of tightening that clamp I discovered that the filter basket for the cold water intake line to the pressure pump was completely clogged with crap and in the process of getting that off and cleaned I discovered that the drain line clamp from the sink was leaking and needed taken apart and cleaned in order to get a good seal... Ahhh the way of boat projects...
   Today's projects for Tim included finishing the rest of the port lens polishing and I have to say that it's one of the most unbelievable improvements we've made. It makes the interior of the boat look dramatically newer and decidedly brighter. Can't run around naked inside the boat anymore though since we're on the main dock and you can actually see through them now...
   The rain continues to fall on the deck so I busied myself with scraping off the brittle glue left on the frame of the companionway from the hideous velcro screen the previous owners used to use. Not perfect, but it's not worth a complete sand and refinish of the frame. I don't intend to insult any of you that are currently using velcro screens. They just aren't for me. This is my liveaboard home and I dont' want it to feel like camping. By the way, I do have to once again plug one of my favorite products, Goo Be Gone. Wonderful stuff there. Softened the brittle glue up just enough to scrape it off without damaging the wood.
   The lightning is crashing around the boat once again and the rain is washing off the Corps Bug residue so I guess I'm off to find another interior project for the afternoon.

Nomad's New Home

2011-06-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

Nomad's new owner was kind enough to send us this picture of Nomad on her new lake in Idaho. She made her land journey safely and now has a 10-hour sail to get to her new marina on the lake. It looks like she'll be quite happy there and we're very pleased to have someone take her that will care for her as well as we have.

Bon Voyage!

Nomad hits the road...

2011-06-18T19:57:00.001-07:00

... a figure of speech of course; at least I hope it turns out to be a figure of speech. The rig she left town on didn't look quite up to the task of hauling 6500 pounds of sailboat some 1700 miles to the northwest; but then I don't know too much about trailering boats. Should she make it unscathed she will find a glassier lake some 70 miles on one leg by 30 miles on the other, 1500 feet deep in places, as her new playground. A bit more room to roam than Carlyle.

Last night yet another round of serious weather pounded the lake, hanging around well into the morning hours. Since Nomad's new owner was on a tight schedule we crawled into foulies to start pulling rigging, sails, and what-not from the deck, the occasional lightning bolt dancing along the bottoms of the clouds as we labored. (It was far from the smartest thing I have done lately.) With just a stick left standing the new owner asked if I would motor his boat across the lake to the waiting travel lift while he drove the truck and trailer around the long way. Doing so would save him an hour. (Schmitty is in the BVI somewhere with a goodly number of the normally assembled. Not only does that make for a quiet weekend here in Boulder, it means there is no one around to operate our travel lift.) I was glad to do it so long as he understood that, when it comes to a certain Com-Pac 27/2, I am not the one insured any longer. Such details covered Mark and Bill jumped aboard with me and little Nomad motored out of Boulder for the last time. As we moved out onto the lake the clouds finally gave way to some sunshine, and we had the place all to ourselves. Not a bad way to bid a fond "fare-thee-well" to a good boat.

The day's efforts to get Nomad on her way left Kintala mostly looking out for herself. Translation? Not a lot of work got done and we didn't get to go sailing. Since, starting tomorrow, trips of the high-altitude sort will fill the rest of the week, Kintala will be a few days before she gets under sail for a second time. Even as we hope to sail more, items needing the "laying on of hands" continue to accumulate. The relentless rain was apparently too much for the main hatch over the saloon table. Moving about to start my day the boat heeled over in the wind and a big dollop of cold water spilled off the corner and right onto my sleepy bald head, landing re-bedding the hatch at the very top of the "do this next" list.

Odd thoughts

2011-06-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

We pulled the old name off of Kintala's flanks last weekend. It seems a pretty minor issue given all the serious (and expensive) work that has been done. Yet it had a pronounced effect on my connection to the boat. Encore is no more. Kintala is home. (And no, we haven't done the prescribed rituals that are supposed to go along with renaming a boat. We will certainly have a pretty good party one of these days, but I am no more concerned with sailing superstitions than I am with social or religious ones.)

Managing a perfect docking is as satisfying as getting a squeaker of a landing in the jet.

We had a chat with our investment guru last week. (Nice guy but a small time guru; we are, after all, small time investors.) The good news is that we are actually gaining on the goal of heading out without being dirt poor. Much as I love the idea of a cruising lifestyle, I have no interest in living in poverty. Been there - done that - not again. When we go is still a bit of a question. The house has been on the market for several weeks without a single serious, or even casual, inquiry. My guess on where the economy is headed is no better than yours.

While talking with the guru I realized that our vision of cruising has changed somewhat. There is no more talk of having a land-place somewhere to store a few things, and a motorcycle or two. (It does help that my all-time favorite motorcycle got totaled out from under me. Parting with the GSXR would have been hard. Actually, now that I think of it, it was hard. Selling it would have been easier.) If it doesn't fit on the boat we don't want our name on it. When the urge to ride (or just to get off the boat for a while) gets too much we will rent or borrow some bikes and remember what its like to be landlubbers again.

I loaded the picture of us sailing Kintala; sails flying and all heeled over, as my computer background. Every time I see it I wish we were gone; that the brown water of the lake was the blue water of the Atlantic; that there was no land to see on the horizon.

We will have to start learning the tricks to short-handed sailing on this thing.

I need to get out of the hangar and on my way to the lake.

How does she sail?

2011-06-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a work then party day. Things got done; most notably the V-berth was converted from a work shop back to a master berth. The inside of a boat looks like a boat now, not a project / work shop. Just in time too, since last night was the club "open boat" bash. Everyone who came aboard had nice things to say, and they all wanted to know when we were going to take her out. "Tomorrow," we said, "We are going sailing tomorrow."

Morning came. Long suffering friends climbed aboard, life-vests were counted ("Yes Mr. Coast Guard man, we have 7 adult floaties, one for each.") the life-sling was mounted, cold drinks and snacks were loaded in the 'fridge and, 128 days from when we first set eyes on her, we were ready to loose Kintala from the dock. I twisted the key... and the ignition switch broke off in my hand. I'm sure I stared at it with a dumb look on my face for a few seconds then,"Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has informed us that there will be a slight delay..."

Long suffering friends headed off to their own boats to go sailing; it was just too nice a day to miss. All asked if Deb and I wanted to join, but I was already pulling stuff out of the lazarette. I would not have been very good company anyway.

But a trip to town, some poking around various auto parts stores, a little rewiring and two new switches later, (A separate, push-button switch for the pre-heater had to be added.) found Kintala making engine noises and spitting water like nothing had happened. Pam, Bill and Spero were still around having just closed up Paradise after a nice sail of their own. They were headed home but decided (like all good sailors) that a chance to go out again on such a nice day shouldn't be missed.

Once on the lake proper the new main went up without a hitch. A few minutes later and the head sail unwound just like it should. We fell off the wind a little, shut down the engine, and I can finally state, "The Tartan 42 is a VERY nice sailing boat."

With puffs of wind in the 10 to 12 knot range, we touched 7; pure joy! Having 3 extra sets of experienced hands was a good thing. It will take us a little while to get used to this boat. She is big(er than Nomad) with a complicated rig; so think ahead and mind the boom. (Oh, and drop the whisker pole ring all the way to the bottom of the track; else the jib sheets will catch it on every tack.) After barely 2 hours - and going across the lake and back 4 times - we headed in. Kintala might have been a little embarrassed by the morning ignition switch episode, she eased into the dock for a landing so perfect it drew comments from the peanut gallery, making me look much better than I am. (Thank you baby, all is forgiven.)

It was a bumpy start to the day, but sitting here now, inside of the boat all cleaned, food prep under way, cold drink in hand, and the first sail done? We got off the dock, and that pretty much says it all.

Weekend Pictures

2011-06-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

Tim in the bosun's chair running the new halyards

Nice clean headsail - the infamous Carlyle corps bugs haven't gotten to it yet!

Finally a system on the boat that worked without repairing it first - the air conditioning shot out a blessedly consistent stream of cooling water.

The UK Halsey new fully battened mainsail. These folks are definitely worth dealing with and we would buy another sail from them in a heartbeat.

If it was easy...

2011-06-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hot. Real hot. Triple digits kind of hot. Sun that will flay the seared flesh right off your bones - kind of hot. Humidity that fills the air so full of water that the sweat running off your nose has no where to go but to drip in your lap - that kind of hot.

Work on Kintala continued anyway, and she showed her appreciation by taking good care of us this weekend. "How", one might ask? One flip of a switch and the Air Conditioning cranked right up! Yeah Baby - just when the conditions were about to overwhelm a body Kintala would welcome us below with cool, open arms and a 'fridge full of cold beverage. I think we are finally getting friendly, this boat and I. (It helps that, finally, there was one system that worked without it needing to have something fixed or replaced first.)

Items are still be added to the discrepancy list quicker than they are being cleared, but some good things got done this weekend. After more than an hour hanging in a Boson's chair nearly 60 feet off the deck, all the halyards are strung. Fred and Gary helped Deb drag my posterior up the stick and handle a spaghetti nest of feeder strings and lines; all the while keeping tension on the lines that really mattered. (Those holding my afore mentioned posterior aloft.)

With halyards installed we could hoist both a jib and the main sail, so we did. It only took 3 tries to get the jib furler right and 2 to get the new main sail installed. (Here's a surprise, there were no sheets for the furling jib on the boat anywhere. Our rigging inspector has to be a true wonder of the world, able to clamber all over a boat and mast, with his head planted firmly up his ass. They should sell tickets to the show when this guy goes to work.) Money spent on the Tides Marine track system was money well spent. UK Halsey did us a first-class job on both workmanship and recommendations. The reefing lines were run and strung and the lazy jacks were lazy jacking. I was on a roll. Sadly though, I finished rolling about the time that the the wind, which at times had touched 17 kts, finished blowing. According to those who did venture forth, hoards of Corps bugs filled in where the wind had been. We will wait until next weekend to trash our brandy new, pretty white main sail with smashed Corps bug juice.

While I flogged rigging all day Deb got the water system fully functional. She would have had it done even quicker except for taking my advice on installing the sump switch; then she had to do it over. I kept my advice to myself on the re-do.

We spent an extra night on the boat, leaving for the city this morning (Monday). As we headed out I realized that Kintala is almost the boat we thought we had purchased. She has a standing mast, rigging, sails, and most of the major systems now function. (We are still waiting for legal gas bottles for the stove and don't sniff too close while in the head.) For any who may be thinking of joining the cruising community, repairs and equipment purchases for Kintala have already added 12% to the purchase price, and we haven't really sailed her yet. This does not include survey / rigging / mechanical inspections (total waste of $$) or shipping the boat from Chicago.

I have no guess as to how many hours of labor have been invested, and there is a long way to go, in both effort and dollars, before she is ready for salt water.

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Some days...

2011-05-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

are better than other days. My first inclination for a title today was, "Good Old Boat? No such a thing!" Kintala just flat kicked me black and blue this weekend. There was the water heater hose, the sump pump shorted again, I started fixing interior damage from stepping the mast, inside the lazarette was a rat's nest of discarded and tangled up wiring that would embarrass the hammest of ham handed amateurs, and the line to work the roller furling was completely shot and only 30 feet long. Just how does both a survey and a rigging inspector not spot such a thing? ($85 for a new line - thank you very much.)

Then this morning dawned with a promise of steady Force 5 winds, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and Kintala has one sail that can be set. Water systems, interior parts, wiring strung by circus clowns on acid...none of that need stand between Kintala and the lake. After all the help provided by friends at the marina it would have been major weenie to go it alone...Al, Bill, Gary, Joel, Mark, Pam, and Spero all jumped on board, lines were tossed, I pretended to know what I was doing, and off we went.

Once clear of the point Kintala put her bow into the wind and up went the little cutter jib. (I plan on sneaking up on this boat a little bit of sail at a time; which works out well since, at the moment, all we have is one little bit of sail.) On a beam reach with 20 to 25 knots of wind showing at the mast head and nothing but this single scrap of canvas flying, both the GPS and the speed meter agreed; we were making nearly 5 knot over the water! Holy mother of go-fast Batman! This thing is a Good Old Boat after all!

Captain at the helm on the first sail

4.6 knots on that little foresail!

Plenty of room for friends

On a completely different note...
No one who knows me would never accuse me of being particularly patriotic. "My country right or wrong," seems the lamest of excuses for allowing evil to pass. Right now we are letting a lot of evil pass under the bridge without much comment. In 1973 I was 18, and in one of the last groups to have a number pulled for "the draft," though by then it didn't mean anything. I was anti-war then (when it was cool) and I am anti-war now (when it is not cool). I figure war is about the dumbest thing human kind has invented, and if we don't uninvent it soon, it may well be the end of us.

But the idiot things we do as a species are one thing, and the incredibly brave, unselfish, and heroic acts of some individuals is quite another. My Dad served in Korea and was at Inchon. Deb's Dad was a Korean vet as well. I have a brother who did 12 years in the Air Force where, as a SP, he traded fire with the bad guys during terrorist attempts on various bases. They did their time and came home. But uncounted graves lying all around the world are testimony that not all get that chance. The war of my youth was 'Nam. Twice in my life I have stood in front of the Wall in D.C. - the one with 58,272 names etched in its black facade. Both times I sobbed like a child, overwhelmed by horror, humbled by the sacrifice...that place literally hurts my heart.

I went sailing today, spent time with friends, rode a fancy motorcycle back to the city, came home to people I love. But this is a day that belongs to the memories, and the honor, of those who didn't come home.

Emergency Surgery

2011-05-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

Kintala had emergency surgery today. She developed an aneurism which we fortunately caught on time so her recovery is expected to be quick and complete. It all started out with the installation of our new digital sound system. In the process of trying to decide where to put the speakers Tim was chasing down wiring from old instruments that don't work anymore but no one took the time to take out. The wiring was situated under the panel in the lazarette so after removing all the contents of the lazarette and going below, he happened to look down at the hot water heater pressure side hose to discover that it was ballooned out and ready to blow. On closer inspection we discovered that someone had used soft vinyl tubing on the pressure side of the hot water heater, yeah the one that carries 140° hot water to the sinks and shower, that would be the one. We turned off the water heater and the water pressure and quickly bled off the pressure in the lines. After some creative draining of the hot water heater we cut the line and re-clamped it until we can go buy some proper reinforced pvc water line to replace it. So my newly acquired excellent hot water source is on hold and I'm back to washing dishes in cold water with the foot pump. This isn't actually too bad since "cold" water around here this time of year isn't very cold and I happen to be particularly fond of the foot pump.

Here's the ugly (They even left the tag on to document it...):

A . Sail . Boat

2011-05-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

We've had a new boat now for a few weeks, but I've had a little difficulty calling it a sailboat because until today it didn't actually have any sails on it. Since the halyard fiasco, we've only managed to get one halyard installed, the only one that we had on the boat that was fit to be used, the inner forestay halyard. All the other halyards are on order and are on their way here, but for now we only have the one. So today in the middle of all the little projects that we had to accomplish we decided to stop and try hoisting the couple sails that we have for the inner forestay just so we could actually have a sail on the boat. The sail up, we stood back and admired her. Even so scantily clad she was pulling at her dock lines and ready to go. I can hardly wait to see what happens with her full suit on. Seeing as tomorrow is supposed to be a perfect sailing day, we may just take her out on the lake and see how fast she'll go on the one sail. So now we have A . Sail . Boat. In the most literal sense since we only have one useable sail.

On another note, one of my projects was to do something about the port lenses. We have Beckson ports on this boat which are great ports, but 30 years of wind and weather and dirt in the screens have taken their toll. To plug Beckson's site a little, they do an admiral job of detailing parts for their ports and making them available for any port that they've ever built in the history of the company. I had been scoping out the replacement lenses, but they were $38.95 each. Not a bad price don't get me wrong, but we have 13 ports in our boat and that just wasn't in the budget. A friend of ours at the marina suggested we try a new product he'd seen, Meguiars Heavy Duty Headlight Restoration Kit. I picked one up and brought it out this weekend and I was completely impressed.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

So if you have old ports in your boat, give this stuff a try. It took me about 40 minutes per window because ours were so bad, but definitely better than the bill for 13 new ones!

And yet on another note in the continuing what-did-we-pay-for-in-the-survey saga, I took the propane bottles to the propane place today to have them filled and it appears that we have illegal bottles with the old valves on them that are many many years out of date. Seems like that might be worth mentioning in a survey, no?

The only thing worse than stuff...

2011-05-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

...is fake stuff.

Yes, you heard me right. I took a couple contract cleaning jobs for a local real estate company cleaning vacant houses that are on the market, something they do every few months or so, and the house I cleaned today was what they call a staged house. The homeowner who has moved hires a staging company to come into their empty house and place rented furniture, paintings, pillows, potted plants (the fake kind), table settings, towels, and props. Fake stuff. Like fake laptops, fake flatscreen TVs, fake fruit, even fake brie... well you get the picture. And regardless of the fact that the prop company slaps a fancy "TurboProps" logo on the stuff, it's still fake. So after hiring the design company, renting the furniture, hiring a real estate agent to market said house, they also have to hire someone like me to come clean their fake stuff every few months that the house doesn't sell. I was in the middle of the work today when I happened to notice the logo on one of the fake props - "TurboProps - Functional Display Art". The absurdity of it all hit me so hard that I nearly fell down laughing. I realize then that the thing I like most about our choice of the cruising life is the authenticity of it. It's pertinent. It's now. It involves very little that is not necessary. It's real. And thank the good Lord in heaven, the only turbo props will be on the power boats that I will studiously try to avoid.

Notebook PropsOpens and closes like real Laptop
3 Units per box
Box Dimensions: 13.5”W x 10.75”H x 7”D
Shipping Weight: 13 lbs
Unit Dimensions:
Opened: 12.25”W x 9.75”H x 10.5”D
Closed: 12.25”W x 1.5”H x 9.75”D
NBBL: Platinum with black acrylic screen
NBGG: Graphite with gray acrylic screen
NBBB: Black with gray acrylic screen
NBBW: White with black acrylic screen
$94.50(3 per Box)

Cool Beans

2011-05-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Since I was out flogging the jet late last week Deb beat me to the lake by a couple of days. By the time I slogged in Friday evening she had cleaned the decks of both Nomad and Kintala, then (on the big boat) installed new LED lights in the salon, re-installed the Bimini, squared away some of the mast rigging, had the water system actually working, and discovered a leaking anti-siphon valve. (She seems inordinately fond of the foot pump for the galley sink!)

Cool beans.

Saturday morning I decided to ignore the fact I had no idea how to get Kintala under control. Instead I just went to the first job listed in the manual for setting up the mast, a procedure called "chocking". Now I didn't really have a clue what that was, but pretended to know what needed done anyway. Joel and Jeff stepped in to help and before long the mast was sitting tight in the cabin top; no fuss, no muss.

Cool beans X 2.

With the mast secured in the deck we replaced the trashed inner fore stay halyard with the only good bit of running rigging we had, and with that there was a way to get up to the lower spreaders. Joel called Kacey and by the end of the day I was swinging in the Boson's chair putting the final tension on the diamond stays. Kintala's mast was secured.

Cool beans X 4.

Saturday evening the assembled decided on an "End of the world" bash. In case you hadn't heard Harold Camping had claimed May 21 as the day god was going to call it quits on the world, (24 hour news channels have to fill air-time somehow). Our marina is nothing if not equal opportunity and the rantings of the clearly demented are as good an excuse for a party as any. Actually, had god showed up he (or she) would have had a rocking good time; long before midnight the quips and jokes were flying so fast and so furious that several of the assembled were reduced to tears - we were laughing that hard.

This morning Dennis, owner of the marina, allowed as he had a plan for getting to the very tippy-top of Kintala's 60 foot mast and rigging a way to install the new halyards when they arrive. He wasn't kidding. After an hour or so aloft he had installed a veritable highway of block and tackle that will get me all the way up to the sheaves on a easy Boson's chair ride. I'm not exactly sure how he managed to get from the lower spreaders to the top of the mast without a halyard - some kind of magic trick with foot loops and one-way knots. It worked though, and on the way down he cleared the mast of the tangle of rigging we used to step the mast in the first place. (Joel, Kacey, Jeff and Thorston were all part of the effort as well.)

Cool Beans X 8.

With the mast straight and true and shed of extraneous rigging, there seemed no reason that the Tides Marine Sail Track system should stay in its box. The first attempt at slidding the track up the mast hit a snag, literally. Jeff loaned me his Dremmel which made quick work of grinding smooth the sharp bit of metal that was digging into the backside of the track and stopping progress. With Thorston adding to the grunt, the track went up the mast with less effort than I would have guessed.

Cool Beans X 16.

Mast and track installed, why not get the boom off the deck? With Bill holding the aft end Thorston helped me secured the pin and rig the topping lift. All the heavy metal was up in the air!

Cool Beans X 32.

This time last week I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, Kintala was essentially a collection of problems, some of which I had no real clue of how to tackle. But the endless, selfless help of friends lead to an exponential rise in the Cool Beans. There is still a long list of things that need fixed, oiled, tweaked, figured out and understood, but Kintala is a sailboat now, not just a project. She is also a testament to the community of sailors that make up our marina. Without them (and Deb) I would still be standing on the foredeck, limp halyard in hand, wondering what to do next.

A Freshman goes to Graduate School

2011-05-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Kintala is a serious boat, built to sail a serious ocean and stand up to serious weather. She demands a serious, knowledgeable Captain. After this weekend its pretty clear I'm not that person; not yet anyway.

Three things need be done to step a mast.
A. Lift said mast as high as necessary.
B. Control the base of the mast.
C. Line the mast up with the boat, or the boat up with the mast, one or the other.

Before the mast leaves the cradle, set a timer for a full hour. Then review the lift. Slowly inspect the whole rig and anticipate what is going to happen to each stay, line, halyard, and shroud, how they will lift, where they will end up hanging, what will they snag or tangle. It only takes 15 minutes? Do it three more times.

On Friday I did a pretty good job on "A", but wasn't smart enough to think of "B" or "C". We had to figure those out after the mast was half in the boat, which was a bit too late. (In my own defense I hired someone who has done this hundreds of times and no, I don't know what went wrong.)

With the mast in place and Kintala back at her pier I spent about an hour figuring out what had to be done to finish the job...yep, that's the hour that should have been put on a timer. Rigging at the top of the mast can best be described as "needing some tension." The port side baby stay got kinked up somehow with the hook end in the mast out of place. On the starboard side the stay was hanging forward of the lower spreader. (Oops, baby stays pull aft.) The topping lift was wrapped around and around, (and around) the back stay. On the foredeck, coiled up kind of neat, was the entire length of the jib halyard. Most of the main halyard lie in the cockpit. Apparently, while I was down below playing dodge 'em with the mast, the deck crew was hastily trying to come with "B" and ended up pulling on the wrong ropes.

Saturday it rained all day, making any trips up the mast a bad idea. Inside boat work filled the day. This morning we were short on time as we needed to be back in the city before noon. But it wasn't raining. I would feel much better leaving the boat for the week with the baby stays, fore and aft main stay, inner forestay, and lower shrouds snugged up. Going as high as I could on the halyard for the inner forestay would get me where I needed to be to straighten out the baby stays. Deb wasn't happy with me going up the mast with so little preparation, but let me have my way.

Now I know that sailors normally go up the mast on one halyard while using a second one as a safety line. Climbers though, go a lot higher than a sailboat mast on a single climbing rope. I'm a moderately experienced climber and besides, I only had one halyard available.

Friend Kort volunteered to help Deb on deck and up the mast I went. A few minutes later all was well with the baby stays ready to take up some load.

"Okay guys, I got it, let me down."

The Bosun's chair dropped a to just between the upper and lower spreaders then bounced to a stop. All was no longer well.

"Ummm...guys, let me down please."

"Hang on, the halyard is shredding."

"Hang on to what? I'm hanging on the halyard!"

The outer covering on the line had parted and managed to get totally wedged in a jam cleat, reveling an inner core that didn't look too healthy either. I was stranded with no obvious way to get down. At least no way that involved a soft landing.

Sometimes a man needs a good idea in a hurry.

Kort is a dive master, climber, and long time sailor. He's a cool head and has worked his way out of a lot of interesting situations. Deb is a sailor, pilot, climber, and life long biker. She too has had her share of moments where thinking quick and getting it right are of equal importance. When things go south she is the one person I want nearby.

Me? Well, I've survived my own stupidity for this long. I figured I had a pretty good chance of getting out of this one. (Or maybe I'm just too dumb to know when I'm real trouble?)

Kort ran to his boat for a line and carabiner for me to haul up on one of the baby stays. If things go wrong when Mother Earth is a lethal fall away, a good line, a locking carabiner, and a solid anchor point are all one needs to go from barely hanging on to just hanging out. Kort had me two-thirds of the way; all I needed was something to hang from. Deb suggested I make use of the sling we had tied off between the spreaders to lift the mast, which (fortunately) was still rigged above me. Hoping the halyard would last for just a few minutes more, and knowing that I would be betting the farm on the knots I was tying in rather trying circumstances, I released my death-grip on the mast, managed enough slack in the sling for an overhand loop, clipped on...and just like that all was well once again. Kort (and a few others who had tuned in to watch the show) picked my weight up on the good line. I untied the fraying halyard, tossed it away for a faithless whore, and soon touched softly down on deck.

I gotta get smarter, faster. But I have gotten this smart. Even if I have to work a few extra months to pay for it, before Kintala takes to big water every bit of running rigging is going to be replaced. And I'm never going to believe another surveyor...ever.

Beaten with a stick.

2011-05-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

Kintala looks like a sailboat again! There is this big, tall thing sticking out of the center of the boat with thick strands of wire strung out all over the place. The rigging is loose, the boom isn't on, and there are a host of things to fix - which is another way of saying that stepping the mast didn't go as smoothly as I hoped.

The worst moment came when the mast was about half way into the boat. I was below shouting instructions to those outside, which included just about everyone who was at the marina. There was a crew at the gin pole, a crew on the boat, a crew across the way on one pier putting tension on the fore stay to pull the mast up straight, and another crew crew on a different pier pulling the boat to starboard, trying to get the boat directly under the mast. It was a bit scary having that much mass hanging out over that many people, and then something shifted. Down in the boat the butt end of the mast started chasing me across the salon, bending the tie rod and trashing a good bit of teak trim in the process. The sound of splintering wood and creaking metal had me thinking the whole mast was coming through the cabin top - I had a quick vision of going down with the ship.

Fortunately I got just enough out of the way so as not to add to my list of injuries. No one else got nicked either and we recovered our poise, figured out something, and eventually got the mast settled in its spot. All said and done the mast is up, no one got hurt, I hope to feel Kintala move under sail sometime in the next few weeks, and there isn't anything broken that I don't know how to fix. A successful day if not a perfect one.

Is it up yet?

When is Grampy T ever going to be done???