Boat Work Take II

...and two airplanes. (See below.) Deb forgot the two airplanes in the "35 years worth of things we have done." Those two airplanes taught me a very valuable lesson, boats are NOT the most expensive things to have around. After kids and airplanes, boats can rank no higher than #3.

Of course we don't have kids at home anymore, and the airplanes are long, long gone...so...

Nomad is still shedding parts like a dog shedding its winter coat. The bow pulpit and wood insert for the bowsprit came off this past weekend. The pulpit ended up stashed in the cockpit, (it doesn't fit in the Z). The bowsprit is sitting on the sawhorses in the shop awaiting its turn to go under the palm sander. Gotta get that done this week so the reinforced pulpit can go back on, which has to happen before the headliner can go back up, which has to happen before the V-berth and settee side panels can go back in. A Giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle, that's what Nomad is at the moment!





There is one item less on the "to-do-before-we-go-back-in-the-water" list, the rubrails have been pulled, the hull / deck seam inspected and repaired as required, and everything has been put back together with a nice coat of tire shine on the rubber rubrails. (Life is too short to sail an ugly boat!) All in all it took most of 3 days worth of effort to fix what needed to be fixed, clean what needed to be cleaned, seal what needed to be sealed, and put it all back together. And that was on a job I thought was going to be a "quick and easy" kind of thing. Goes to show what I know about boat work.



While I made endless trips up and down the ladder, Deb settled underneath the boat and started to work on the bottom. Hers was an ugly day full of dust, awkward positions, and overhead reaches. As usual she just kept at it and, by the time the day was over, Nomad had shed most of the scuz accumulated by sitting in the water for a couple of years.







It is an absolute joy to be back at the marina, which is slowly shedding the deep freeze slumber of the past few months and showing signs of life. Several boats are undergoing ministrations at the hands of owners and crews. People come and go, tools and parts are swapped and borrowed as needed, and the dredge is digging the bottom out of the marina. Soon, (but not soon enough) Nomad will be back in her slip and our normal, weekend address once again.