Just a couple more...

...projects ticked off the list. One of the things that came up on the pre-purchase survey was the lack of the lower life-lines on the stanchions below the teak rails. The holes were there, the lifelines not. We had replaced ours on Kintala  long ago with Samson Amsteel and loved it, so I looked online for some on sale since it can be quite expensive. After searching a bit, I found this truck winch line made of Amsteel with an eye already spliced into it at literally half the price of just the line itself from a marine supplier. Same. Exact. Stuff. Fifty feet for $22.99 as opposed to $51.50 with no spliced eye. Sold. Tim spent a couple hours cutting and splicing and adding hooks to open and close the lifelines at the gates. Another survey item crossed off the list and it cost less than a B.O.A.T. buck.

Another thing that we wanted to do was to install an Acu-Rite weather station to replace the badly corroded barometer and clock that were on the boat. We bought the Pro model, and while we're very pleased with the capabilities of the unit (time, date, pressure, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, forecast, moon phase, and historical figures), it will remain to be seen whether it can survive the rigors of the marine world. It's really intended to be installed permanently on land, not on a boat, but I've heard from several people that it has worked for them on their boats so we thought we'd give it a try. Time will tell and we'll include a review about it on the Reviews tab up above after we've had it for awhile. It is one of the weird adjustments you have to make when you go from sail to power - that insatiable need to know what direction and speed the winds are - and the lack of a masthead anemometer is a little disconcerting. We had originally hoped to mount this thing on the radar arch, but it expressly warned in the installation instructions against mounting too near things like radar, so we opted for the side of the hardtop. This does not put it in optimum position for accurate wind readings, but at least it will give us some idea.

I had a daunting list for this work trip over a full notebook page long. It was good to get at least 3/4 of it checked off, much more than I had hoped. The few remaining items will get pushed to the next trip, but for now we're feeling pretty dang good about the progress.