Marina and I drove down to the boat Thursday night after I finished up with my substance abuse counseling group in Kinston. Once onboard, we turned on the lights, put a case of Yoohoo in the fridge and turned it on, moved the cockpit cushions out of the solon to the cockpit along with the helm, drank a Yoohoo, checked the bilge, and then we both went to bed. In the morning we went out to breakfast at Captain Ratty[s, a landmark eatery just across the bridge from where we are moored, and then stopped by the hardware store for brass screws, bungee cords, paint scraper, and waxed twine. Back at the boat we cleared out Marina’s stateroom so we could get under her bunk to work on the holding tank and figure out the valve set up. We removed the access covers and opened up the holding tank. Marina backed up holding her nose; me, I can’t smell very well any more so it didn’t bother me at all. Marina put red food coloring in the toilet so that we could try various valve settings to see what went where. It didn’t take long. The holding tank was empty, except for the red water we pumped into it during our investigation so I fired up the macerator pump and using the water hose from the dock I rinsed the holding tank out and sprayed some cleaner in the tank and rinsed that out as well. With that task done I got busy wiping down everything in the forward stateroom while Marina cleaned up the head. While cleaning up I came across the remote controller for the anchor windlass. The up/down buttons, while working, have their plastic covers cracked and no longer water proof. Looking over the documentation and some notes that the former owners left for us, I emailed Lewmar, the manufacture, to find out what I could do to either get it fixed or replaced. It was about 1500 hours and we decided to go up to a local Japanese restaurant for a late lunch or early supper, depending how you look at it. Back to the boat we removed the mainsail cover, attaché the halyard, removed the sail ties and slowly raised the sail, inspecting every inch as we did we noted some minor chaffing along the leach. Once the sail was up we discovered a number of lines, blocks, and attachments that were not at first understood. I’ll figure them out next time we are down at the boat. Furling the sail highlighted a problem; I could barely reach the top of the sail to disconnect the halyard, so there is no way Marina is going to be able to get to it. Just another issue to put on the “to do” list. While Marina continued some of the cleaning chores below I got busy making up lines and filling the water tank. With that done I checked the oil in the engine and was pleased to see that it was up to level which suggests that my efforts to stem the oil leaks. After that I turned my attention to my stateroom. First off, I got rid of the memory foam that covered my bunk. It is soft but heavy and makes getting access to the space beneath the bunk a two person chore and not at all acceptable in the event of a problem with the steering quadrant or cables. With that out of the way, I made up the bunk, store some tools into various tool bags, and put them into the walk in closet until such time as I construct tool storage that will meet my need for access and the boat’s need to have more weight on the starboard side to counter the port list that fuel and water tanks engender. Packing up the laptop, GPS, my gym bag, the trash, and Marina’s bedding into the dock cart, we stowed the cockpit cushions and helm back below and headed home. We didn’t get as much done as we had planned, but we both agreed that we had a very productive day, one we enjoyed tremendously.
Comment by Marlene Anne Sassaman on March 20, 2012 at 7:24pm
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