500 steps

That could be a rough guess at how long the path between Kintala and big water, or between Kintala and lake water for that matter, but it isn't. Five hundred steps is about the round trip walk from the boat to the marina's big trash bin, and back to the boat.

I call it my victory lap. Whenever I walk it carrying a load of removed, rejected, or replaced bits and pieces it feels like I am winning the battle of the boat.

Today I walked it with the last of the old water line. There is water on the boat, the pressure system works better than it ever has, and after a bit of a struggle there are no leaks on the pressure side...which brings me to a question.

Can anyone think of a reason that someone would take brand new barbed fittings for assembling the plumbing on an expensive, 42 foot sailboat, cut the barber part of the fitting off, and stick them in the main pressure manifold? Anyone?

I can't either, but that's what I found while tracing down various pressure leaks. (The cut-off fittings are in the trash bin with nearly 150 feet of crusty, stiff, oil soaked old hose.) I shouldn't be surprised by anything I find in boats anymore, but cut-off fittings? Are you serious?

The victory lap did come a few hours later than originally planned. Good friend Kacey insisted that we go sailing with him. He was unrelenting and so, after 2 or 3 seconds, we gave in. Four hours on the lake, occasionally running a rail under the water, hot coffee complementing the sun on a cool morning; this, friends and neighbors, is where everyone is trying to be (even if they haven't figured it out yet).  Or, as Kacey puts it, "I wonder what the rich people are doing this morning?"

We earned our victory lap this weekend.

Recovering...slowly

I could feel something coming on last Saturday night. Spending most of Sunday in the V-berth corralled enough energy for the drive to the city. By the wee hours of Monday both Deb and I had landed firmly in Zombie land, felled by a persistent, nasty little virus that consumed an entire week of our lives. It wasn't until Friday morning that I managed to get out of the house for a couple of hours work time. (Tuesday was so bad I couldn't even do emails from the bedroom!) Friday late afternoon we were back on Kintala. It is strangely quiet around the lake this weekend. Only 4 of us were on boats last night so Friend James joined us for an evening meal of Mexican Dip (see the Cruising Comforts blog on the tab in the header). Our first real meal in a week - it was a good one.

Embarrassed by my lack of progress and still waiting on the machine shop to hack chunks off the coupler, this morning it seemed reasonable to worry a couple of minor cosmetic projects to a close. That proved encouraging so why not start another big project? After all we only have 4 or 5 of those in progress at the moment.

"Marine water line" is printed on the box. Pretty stuff, 5/8", bright white with colored reinforcing threads. Once I started pulling some of the old stuff from under the sink something became distressingly clear - there is not a single piece of marine grade water line anywhere in this boat:  NONE. Was there no such a thing in 1982? The junk to come out so far is clearly something no healthy person would use to move drinking water. This is going to be a job high on the "glad we did that" list.

It is going to take a while though. At some point in her checkered past Kintala has had either a pump or her lines changed. The pump has 1/2 inch fittings, the lines are all 5/8s. But if one takes soft plastic 5/8s tubing with no reinforcing, it will crush down onto a 1/2 inch fitting tight enough to "fit". Of course one can order the proper fittings for about $3 each - but why bother when Mickey Mouse and Captain Shade Tree can do the job both cheap AND dirty?

And why would any Certified Master Boat Survey Hack bother to mention it?

Nice new clean water hose.  Yippeeee!

He wouldn't.

Putz.