Toein' The Line

This whole thing of moving aboard our boat has turned into something really incredible.  I mean the whole experience, from A to Z, is just too gold plated to be calling it luck and we feel very fortunate for all we have.  And for all we don't have too.

This past weekend was really something.  Over the last two weeks we've been scrambling to sell all of our big pieces of furniture.  On Saturday we sold the two remaining bedroom sets and a couple of pieces that had been difficult to sell earlier.  I think what prompted the selling fury was when we allowed a guy from an auction house to walk through the house and eyeball what we had.  We had listed almost everything on Craigslist but hadn't sold much, just a piece here and there.  This guy didn't buy anything but was very honest in his critique of our prices, saying that most things were probably at the high end of what they would go for at auction and others were just set too high.  After he left we went through everything and reduced the prices.  Not a lot, but say if this piece was listed at $400, then we dropped it to $350.  Everything was re-posted on Craigslist and by Saturday we had sold about 80% of our furniture.

We still had a ton of other stuff to get rid of, mostly small things.  We arranged to have a garage sale on Sunday, posted notices for it on Craigslist and one other local site and then put up 4 signs around the neighborhood and out on the main drag.  I'm amazed at how much stuff we had laying around the house.  We set it all out on tables around the garage including one table in the middle with nothing but DVD's, and we had a bunch of them.

Once the doors opened up it went crazy and then stayed that way almost straight through.  We gave away so much stuff I didn't think we'd have much to show for it at the end of the day but it was just so much fun.  Little kids would ask how much for this and we'd say "it's free for you" and their face would light up.  Same thing with adults.  There was very little haggling over prices because we wanted things to move out and set prices low from the start.  We met lotsa people, made new friends.  It was just so cool.  In the middle of this frenzy our realtor called to say he wanted to buy most of the furniture we had left.  Unbelievable!  In the end, we cleared out almost everything, just a small pile of stuff left over and a few pieces of furniture.  We even managed to get rid of several old cans of paint.  Final tally for the garage sale, not including the furniture we sold, came to over $4700.  Yikes!  The money was nice but the experience and the people were what really made this great.  It was such a blast.  We feel very fortunate for how well this went and also for being able to unload all of our stuff so quickly.  What a relief to have that out of the way.

So now things are really moving ahead.  We have less than a week before settlement on the house.  Cheri's taking Bella Houdini down to Florida to visit with her folks (Cheri's folks, not Bella's).  While she's gone I'll be staying with some friends during the week and spending weekends on the boat.  She was supposed to be launched Thursday of this week but apparently I made the mistake of telling the yard dudes that we wouldn't be moving aboard until May 15th.  Now the splash date is sometime next week.  Good enough.  There's still a ton of stuff to take care of, mostly wiring connections down below and, uhm, fixing the propane system.  Grrr.

This week the hull was compounded and waxed and it turned out really nice, like a mirror.  They used some stuff with a 2000 grit and then waxed it out with Meguiar's wax.  Two yutes worked all day on the hull and still hafta do the topsides.  That's a lotta work.  I had originally planned to do this myself but I've run out of time.  And energy.  Lucky for me we pulled in some cash from the garage sale to cover things like this.  After seeing these guys doing the actual work I'd say it's money well spent.  Look at that shine!

The mast was stepped (put in place) on Wednesday.  This involved 5 guys from the yard and a hired crane.  I stood back out of the way and watched.  The whole operation took about 45 minutes.  These dudes really know their stuff!  As Mac said, "now we have a sailboat".  Next week she gets splashed, launched, at which time the rigging will be tuned.  This is a pretty involved process and I'm going to try to be there to learn as much as I can.  I think most of it is done by eye, watching the bend of the mast as you tighten up the standing rigging.  When the mast was stepped they discovered that it was rigged wrong, one side was reversed compared to the other, which I guess can cause the mast to twist.  I'll bet the previous owner was wondering why this boat always wanted to sail in circles.

Another thing we found was that some of the pins that hold the mast rigging in place were badly worn and needed to be replaced.  I plan to replace all the standing rigging in about 4 years, right before we head out on the big cruise.  Probably replace all the running rigging at that time too.  For those who don't know, the running rigging is all the lines that are used to raise and adjust the sails and can be divided into two basic types.  Halyards are used to raise and lower the sails and sheets are used to adjust the angle and shape of the sail relative to the wind.  This is a real oversimplification, by the way.

Sailing can be a highly technical sport and some folks really get into that end of it.  I personally like it for the connection to the wind and the water.  There's something in my soul that just clicks into place, rings like harmonizing voices when I'm out sailing.  A major attraction for me is the sound of the boat working through the water, the wind in the rigging and the quiet all around you.  I like the motion of the boat and the feel of the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.  I really like the pace, so slow yet crashing along at all of 6 or 8 knots (lardy dar talk for MPH).  You feel like you're going 100 miles an hour but it takes so darn long to get anywhere and half the time you don't even care.  It's a complete sensory kinda thing.