A matter of perception.

It would be a major embarrassment if the guy who bought Nomad thinks of me in the same way I think of the previous owner of Kintala. I know he had to deal with a contaminated water tank that I simply never got squared away, but for the most part we tried to do good work on the little boat that taught us so much. Kintala wasn't so favored.

It isn't that we got much done this weekend. We bent on the main and screecher sails. Deb claims we did it to nudge Kintala into thinking of herself as a functioning sail boat again. Really though, getting the sails out of the boat means more room in the work area for tools and parts; and we got the battens out of the main cabin as well. Straightening up the inside of the boat led to some more determined cleaning, which led to pulling all the stuff out of a couple of the cabinets, which led to finding a couple of stray bits of wood. One turned out to be a missing fiddle in the salon; another a part long missing off a lower storage door. I just can't get my head around breaking a part off the boat and just tossing it in the bottom of a cabinet somewhere.

So I wasn't completely useless in the boat work department this weekend. A couple of little items got put right, there are sails on the boat, the engine got poked a bit to see if the heat exchanger needed work or not, (not, as it turned out - a bit of a surprise there) and the inside of the boat got a bit of cleaning done. It is good, sometimes, just to do things that you can see when done. Kintala isn't any closer to being a running boat after this weekend, but somehow she looks like she is, and so somehow I feel like she is. Perception is a strange thing sometimes.

Friends Joel and Emily made real progress on their boat. We had a bit of a contest going, could I get my drive train together before their new standing rigging was built up and the mast standing once again. Joel and Kacey labored until 0330 this morning assembling a new furler and this afternoon I helped step the mast. I don't begrudge Joel the game though; the work he has put into their boat easily equals the efforts demanded by our Tartan. Besides, once he gets the rigging squared away I'll have another boat from which to bum rides.