If one followed my last post and the comments, particularly those of good Friend Robert, one would see a long discussion that focused on how, why, and how much, someone should be angry over this or that. Let me say that I dearly love Friend Robert's different world view, and that it is my deepest hope that we meet up at some anchorage someday, (preferably far from US shores) share a cold one or two, and debate until our hearts are content. But, be that as it may, I live on a sailboat. Anger is an infrequent visitor who can only breach Kintala's companionway when we are on the dock, in the US, with good Internet access. Only then do I get a daily dose of follies of human kind, particularly the follies of American / political / religious human kind. And, yes, I should know better than to check the news every morning. All I can plead is that old habits die hard. (Okay, I'll admit that a good wake hit from a passing boat or jet ski will provoke a word or two. But that is a short-lived bit of being incensed that comes with any display of stupid.)
In our normal world of living aboard, unaffected by the insanity that surrounds a life off the water, boat work goes on apiece. My big project at the moment is working through the ST1000 auto-helm install. No clue how long it is going to take since each step has to wait on the step before. An example is access to the transfer tube on the wind vane. We had none, though I should have thought of it as part of the original install. Yesterday was filled with sourcing a deck plate and installing it on the front face of Kintala's helm seat bulkhead. It went pretty well. In fact the frame fit in the hole cut on the first try, with no need of a rotary file to grind away the tight spots. So today was filled with trying to figure out how to hook the ST1000 to the control rod on the Cape Horn transfer tube. Several possibilities were explored. At this moment the thought is that mounting the ST1000 to the cockpit coaming and attaching it to the control rod via a push-pull cable, might (might!) be the way to go. Tomorrow we will take a harder look at making that work. If it does the whole auto-helm thing will be kind of cool, even if it does give clear evidence of back-yard engineering and make-it-work-with-what-you-got design.
Deb spent the day replacing the fabric cushion on our nav seat. The original was showing its age. The new, brown, Naugahyde cover has classed up the place considerably. Though probably an indication of my warped mind, I find working on a clean, good looking boat is easier than grunting away on one that looks tired and worn. Working through a list of projects will make any boat look like a refugee camp, but keeping the chaos factor to a minimum helps in making the work seem more worthwhile. At least it does for me. So Deb's nav seat cover, though an easy task that some might think kind of minor, goes a long way in keeping the “work-on-it-some-more” fires burning.
We have a week before leaving the boat on the hard, in the caring hands of Oak Harbor, and heading west. It is close enough that thoughts of seeing family, Daughters, and grand kids fill my day. Pretty much nothing will make me too angry when set against those images. The rest of the world can take care of itself for a while, and I hope to have the auto-helm pretty much done before we leave.
In our normal world of living aboard, unaffected by the insanity that surrounds a life off the water, boat work goes on apiece. My big project at the moment is working through the ST1000 auto-helm install. No clue how long it is going to take since each step has to wait on the step before. An example is access to the transfer tube on the wind vane. We had none, though I should have thought of it as part of the original install. Yesterday was filled with sourcing a deck plate and installing it on the front face of Kintala's helm seat bulkhead. It went pretty well. In fact the frame fit in the hole cut on the first try, with no need of a rotary file to grind away the tight spots. So today was filled with trying to figure out how to hook the ST1000 to the control rod on the Cape Horn transfer tube. Several possibilities were explored. At this moment the thought is that mounting the ST1000 to the cockpit coaming and attaching it to the control rod via a push-pull cable, might (might!) be the way to go. Tomorrow we will take a harder look at making that work. If it does the whole auto-helm thing will be kind of cool, even if it does give clear evidence of back-yard engineering and make-it-work-with-what-you-got design.
Deb spent the day replacing the fabric cushion on our nav seat. The original was showing its age. The new, brown, Naugahyde cover has classed up the place considerably. Though probably an indication of my warped mind, I find working on a clean, good looking boat is easier than grunting away on one that looks tired and worn. Working through a list of projects will make any boat look like a refugee camp, but keeping the chaos factor to a minimum helps in making the work seem more worthwhile. At least it does for me. So Deb's nav seat cover, though an easy task that some might think kind of minor, goes a long way in keeping the “work-on-it-some-more” fires burning.
We have a week before leaving the boat on the hard, in the caring hands of Oak Harbor, and heading west. It is close enough that thoughts of seeing family, Daughters, and grand kids fill my day. Pretty much nothing will make me too angry when set against those images. The rest of the world can take care of itself for a while, and I hope to have the auto-helm pretty much done before we leave.
