Saturday
We woke in the morning to discover that the weather report was unfortunately accurate. The wind was blowing and the boat was moving around pretty good. Shortly thereafter it began to rain. The report suggested that it would be blowing gale force winds with 14-17' seas by early afternoon. Thus, we decided to postpone launch. This was not necessarily unfortunate as it gave us an opportunity to discover a few minor leaks. By 'a few minor leaks' I mean there were several garden hose style leaks at every hatch, portlight, vent and any other minor opening on the hull.
We began the day with a hearty bowl of salty oatmeal. Aaron then finished the final cutout on our storm covers while I began repairing the forehatch. Lisa had gone to town and returned bearing gifts and food. Thus, we had the best lunch this boat has ever seen. Aaron and Lisa ran to town for mounting hardware for our jury rigged radar installation, which is now complete. They also managed to aqcuire fittings for the racor fuel filter assembly, the lack of which had been plaguing us for days. In addition they also purchased new hardware to attach the storm covers, but by the end of the day we were back to using the original hardware due to a small design change.
All in all, we managed to install several storm covers and fix many leaks. Due to the weather and the motion of the boat we made slow progress. The storm has just about blown itself out, however we will not be leaving port today as a result of yesterdays fiascos. Tomorrow is our last chance departure day, and we are pushing full steam to make the cutoff. We still have not come up with a solution to the heating issue and are not finished with the fuel system installation. We also need to wire the masthead running light, complete the storm cover project and do the final install of the radar and gps displays.
Thanks to Lisa and her photography skills we have several new photos for you today. We are well on our way to drying out, the sun is shining, the crew is in high spirits and after a large bowl of delicious oatmeal and a little blogging we are beginning our day.
-JD
Monday
I hope you guys can stow those nasty dock lines today. I hope all leaks have been slowed, and you have found a way not to freeze to death. I haven't read you speaking of a fueling session, so maybe today you will drain your account completely and fuel the lovely vessel. Probably a 6 gallon tank at a time.
I have been thinking about your heating conundrum. And wondered if you could possibly vent some of the heat from the engine compartment into the rest of the boat. I dismissed the idea when it came to my head because of the fact that the engine might not be on all of the time, but when it is...
Also I was at a truck stop on Sunday and saw some twelve-volt heaters they have there. Granted they are not high BTU rigs but if you got a few of tose it might take the edge off. This again becomes an only-when-the-engine-is-running type of solution. Due to electricity usage.
Did you usee the windless to get Aaron up the mast? Those are some nice images.
I see that with some time the oatmeal went from salty to delicious. :-)
I take it part of the day today or of the night last night is being devoted to navigation. Which is what I though the image of JD, fixing the center hatch, was at first.
Cheers,
Tláloc
Oatmeal?
Reminds me of the high school days you were marching up and down the Olympics in a make shift tent eating oatmeal. Wow! Years of experience later and now you can march up and down the Atlantic in a sailboat eating oatmeal. Thats progress.
Have a good time. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Lord bless, Dad
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