A giant leap

Did you know, if you sign enough pieces of paper, they will give you money to buy a sailboat? We signed those papers today and soon (so I'm told) magic green will flow through the electronic ether and land in our account. Later someone will twist the current on some electronic do-dad somewhere and the magic green will flow out of our account and into another. Then we'll be allowed to haul the Tartan off without being accused of stealing the thing. How cool is that?

The rigging inspection was finished today as well. As expected it added another item to my things-I-will-have-to-fix list. A few small cracks on the spreader support brackets will need a brush of the T.I.G. applied before the mast goes back up, a task I will contract out. When it comes to welding I am a hell of an airplane driver.

With this last inspection complete we have at least a hint of the size of project we are about to rope to our pier; wiring glitches, engine mounts, gages, new sail, rigging, plumbing, and things-we-don't-know-about-yet. It is going to take a while. In fact I'll be pretty happy if we manage a few practice runs before this year's 4th of July raft up and fireworks party. And I have to admit, had anyone at the first 4th of July raft up we attended suggested we would, in just a few years, be sailing 23,000 pounds worth of Tartan 42 to the show, I would have thought them daft.