Boat work

05 Feb. 11


So here we are back at the boat again. Today being Saturday there seems to be a party going on at the yacht club tonight because as I sit here on the boat I can hear loud music playing in the background. We haven’t gone down there to look because I know that I will spend more money than we have and will probably drink a bit too much and not be able to face anyone in the morning, so better avoided. Anyway we arrived on Thursday afternoon to a stinking maggot and cockroach infested boat. Last time we left we decided that since the power was quite stable we would be able to leave the fridges stocked with some meat and pies for the next time we came down. Well we didn’t calculate that the stupid clowns working on the boat across from ours would unplug our boat and leave it unplugged for long enough to make everything rotten and stink. Even now after two days the fridge still has a “special” smell every time the door is opened.

We had some boat work to complete in order to tick the jobs off our list. So yesterday we started measuring for a book shelve to put the kid’s home school books onto. After we cut the wood to size we had to paint a few coats of undercoat and allow for each coat to dry, so the shelf still isn’t up yet but at least the undercoat is done.

At the moment I feel as if we are not making any progress toward the trip but rather that things are going in reverse. The boat, as I sit here and think about it, is at the moment an oversized extremely underpowered and slow “power boat” with a huge pole sticking up in the middle of it. I cannot use any sails as both the head sail and the main sail aren’t working at the moment. The main sail has to be cut shorter at the foot by about 300mm due to the bimmini and then the bridle has to be sorted out so I can use it. The head sail has got worn out cars so I removed one to find out if it can be repaired or has to be replaced. Guess what, yes nothing can ever be repaired and always has to be replaced at an astronomical amount so no head sail at the moment either.

06 Feb. 11

I don’t know what has happened to me lately but it seems as if I have become completely incompetent. We had to by a new catch for the geyser cover because the last one broke while we were out sailing. The old catch was a swivel catch and not very strong so when we were looking for a new one I picked on up at the marine chandlery and inspected it to make sure that it would be strong enough and not of the same swivel type. We found one that would do the job and bought it along with some other stuff. I don’t know how it happened but when we got back to the boat and started fitting the new latch we were surprised to discovered that it was a swivel latch exactly the same as the previous one that broke. I even checked the till slip to try and find out how this happened and even on the slip it said swivel latch so my only explanation can be that I must have gone blind and stupid in the shop.

Next we decided that we should move the chartplotter screen to the outside next to the helm. A simple job really that should have taken about a half hour to do. Well after drilling the holes about 5mm to much to the one side we discovered that the plotter fits exactly and now the cover has no space to fit and has to be forced on. Next we had to drill a hole to fit the wiring through and even this didn’t work out as planned and I landed up having to fill extra holes afterwards. So it’s become official, when it comes to boat work, I am an idiot with two left hands.