We shut down the blog for a while, about six months, but we're back in it knee deep once again. The reason for shutting down was that we had an offer on our boat. It was down to the wire, almost a done deal, and then the buyers discovered this blog. We had a wish list showing all the things we wanted to do on the boat over the next few years to get it ready for our retirement. The buyers felt that we should complete the list and include things like a gen set and auto pilot, at our expense, to close the deal. We did offer to go halves with them on an auto pilot but they wanted us to pay for it all so we told them to pack sand. Pulling the plug on the sale was so hard to do because we knew it could be a long time before we got another offer. We just felt that we had been pushed too far and the deal wasn't equitable. We don't have to sell the boat and we're not desperate. Most of all, we don't want to feel like we were pressured to sell and then walk away from it feeling like we got screwed. I'll tell ya, these are not good times to be selling a boat.
Just a week before all that went down we had MTS install our radar on the mast. We also began replacing the running rigging, starting with the out-haul on the main. Since then we've replaced everything except the halyards and they are definitely next on the list.
When I installed the new furling line for the in-mast roller furling part of the task was to drop the main to free up the spool so the line could be wound on. As I was removing the halyard I noticed it was showing some pretty serious wear at the eye splice. Gotta get that one replaced before she lets go. It'd be such a bummer to be out in high winds and lose the halyard. The main would drop but even worse, the halyard would pull itself up inside the mast. Once that happens it becomes a major pain in the butt to get it re-strung. Best to replace it before anything forces the issue. The halyard runs from the top of the mainsail to the top of the mast, over a sheave (pulley) and then back down through the mast for most of it's length before exiting through a slot just above the winch. This keeps the lines from slapping against the mast when the wind blows. If you've ever been in a marina during high winds you know what a racket this makes. Sounds like 100 winds chimes only not as pleasant. I've never done it but I've been told the best way to replace the halyard is to sew the ends of the new and old lines together with sail mending thread and then pull the new line through as you remove the old one. Doesn't sound too tough. I'll report on how that goes soon. Real soon.
We've had an offer in on a Trintella 47 since February but we need to sell our boat before we can move ahead with another one. In the mean time Cheri fell in love with a Tayana 48. Nice boat. If it's still around when we finally sell ours it may be the "one". Time will tell. One thing about the Tayana that caught our eye was the exterior teak had twenty coats of varnish and it looked spectacular, like it was encased in glass. This is not something I would strive for myself since I try to minimize the amount of labor needed to keep up a boat but Cheri really liked it and decided our cockpit coaming would look really nice like that. Last Fall she took it down to bare wood and added five coats of Cetol so the coaming was looking really nice already. She wanted to add that extra touch of pizazz so she added two more coats of clear to that. Before it had a chance to harden Bella got up on deck and ran across it leaving cute little doggy prints across the surface. Then we went sailing and the jib sheets dragged across the coaming and really tore it up. Now she's taking it all back to bare wood and starting all over. This is a lot of work so we had better make sure it's completely cured before going near it again.
While she worked on the coaming this weekend I spent my time rebuilding the valves for our two heads. This is a fun job but I won't go into detail about how disgusting it is. Use your imagination. After rebuilding the forward head I went through the aft head and had that one done in about half the time. Practice makes perfect I guess. When we first bought the boat we had the yard at Gratitude replace all the waste hoses in an effort to rid the boat of ever-present odors. Of course that turned out to be a bad holding tank but that's another story and it's been beaten to death. When the new hoses were installed Cheri declared that the aft head would not be used because the length of the hose to the holding tank would cause it to go bad, become permeated and it would start stinking again. So, we haven't been using the aft head at all for the last two and a half years. I took the time to rebuild it since the boat is for sale and we wanted everything to be in good condition. When I took the valve body apart I found what looked to be a brand new system that was pristine inside. I rebuilt the valve anyway since I had it all apart. When I was done I ran water through it to make sure everything was working properly. It wasn't. The flange on the outgoing side, where the joker valve is, was leaking. I tried tightening it but that didn't help. I took it apart and under close inspection discovered that the flange was cracked. It looks like the new hoses that were installed were too long and caused a bad angle at the flange. Instead of shortening the hose to get a better angle the installer just put his weight on it and forced the flange to mate up. Too much pressure cause the flange to fail. So, now we have a new flange on order and when it comes in I'll shorten that hose by about an inch before I put it on. The repairs on this boat are never-ending.
Once I finished rebuilding the heads I went topside and scrubbed down the teak toe rail and eyebrow trim. I used step one of a two step process to clean the teak but when I rinsed it off I found the teak still looked dark and had these black streaks in it. Besides that, the grain was raised quite a bit from scrubbing and looked pretty rough. Grrrr. Nothing is ever easy. I ended up taking a green pad ( actually a purple one) and scrubbed the teak using that instead of a brush. I could have gone over it with sandpaper but I'm concerned about taking off more of the wood than I have to. Using the pad I was able to knock the top off the grain and clean it up without taking off more wood than necessary. When I put the first coat of oil on it looked really nice.
We've been out for a few nice weekends over the last few months. We stayed three days on the Wye in the beginning of May and then had two days on the Choptank River in Baby Owls Cove off of Broad Creek. I think I still prefer the Wye River over anywhere else on the Bay. You can find a place to anchor that's secluded and chances are that you'll have it all to your own. I like that. When we anchored at Baby Owls Cove there was a raft-up of 10 Beneteau's as well as three or four other boats besides ourselves. That's a lot of boats crammed into one small cove. I go out to get away from it all, not to get back in the middle of it.
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