Masts are down. Water line pushed up.

Little by little Worrall Wind is getting dolled up for the big cruise. Despite a chill summer wind, the yard rigger was lifted to the top of the masts on Worrall Wind where he wrapped a harness around each mast. The crane first lifted the mizzen, then the main mast laying them in separate horizontal cradles that were rolled to the mast yard for a rigging refit. Having stepped masts made this a much easier operation than pulling a mast that goes through the deck. Nevertheless, the downed main looked like a tangle of spaghetti.

Russ immediately mounted two brackets on the masts. On the main, he mounted a bracket for a radar reflector. On the the mizzen, he mounted a bracket for the ampair wind/water generator. In the meantime, I worked on cleaning, polishing, and painting the propellor. Thankfully, the bottom painter had already taken most of the growth off the propellor, an ugly - dirty job! He gave me an air pressured drill with wire brush to polish and score the prop. He took pity on me as, I was trying to clean the prop with Brasso and a wire brush. The air drill was amazing, zip, zip and each blade was incredibly shiney. Kind of sounded like a dentist drill so I turned up the IPod and rocked out. Yippee!

Over the course of the weekend, I painted on a base coat and 4 coats of this prop paint that drys like rubber cement and is supposed to keep the critters from attaching.

In between coats, I used the heat gun to strip varnish off the back rails. By the time I was working on the back rails, the sun had come out, and we exchanged out our jackets and earmuffs for sunscreen and wide brimmed hats.

While Russ and I were busy with our tasks, the bottom job painter, was busy raising the water line on Worrall Wind. We are using Trinidad Pettit bottom paint, applying two full coats and a third coat 18" from the water line down. We know once we load on our gear we will need that line raised a little or we will be growing a beard on the gel coat. Our starboard side was already pushed down with the weight of the diesel tanks. Once the painter was done on Friday, Russ scrubbed the boat down on Sunday morning, preparing to polish, but got sidetracked taking off the swim ladder and mounting brackets on the transom for the Hydrovane windsteering system. We didn't head home until dusk and were exhausted. Polishing will have to wait until our next trip down.

Hauled Out and Torn Apart

Another holiday at the dock. The July 4th holiday came and went as we broke the boat down for a haul out, bottom job, and standing rigging refit. The bimini, beautiful and completed was broken down and booted up. It took me about 45 minutes to unzip the sunscreens, unpin the front bow, fold the back bow and put the boot on. With practice the two of us could do this in 15 minutes.

We took off the mizzen boom and disconnected the antennas and radar which meant Russ had to climb the mizzen. We replaced three hatch covers with new tinted plexiglass. Russ continued to work on installing the water maker. He has a few more electical connections and that project will be complete. In the mean time the boat is totally torn apart on the inside. Walking around with floor boards up is quite a balancing act. The refrigeration experts are in the process of reinsulating our old well frig, rebuilding our upright frig and enlarging it, and installing a freezer under the starboard settee. We are having two Frigoboat keel coolers installed which should be energy efficient and give us plenty of space for storing foods that need to be cool and frozen.

While Russ worked on the watermaker, I fired up the computer and started listing all of the boat's equipment with model numbers and serial numbers. Apparently, this is important to have in case the property is ever stolen it is easier to recover. We were going to take the boat over to the boat yard on Sunday afternoon, but the wind was blowing 40 knots and would have been difficult to handle and dock single handed (I would be ferrying the car to the boat yard). The last time we did this in a high wind, it took two dockhands from KKMI to tie the boat down. No one would be there on Sunday afternoon to give us a hand so we decided to wait until Monday morning. We got up early on Monday, disconnected the electricity and water. Russ left early Monday a.m. It takes about 10 minutes to drive and 1 hour and 20 minutes to motor the boat from the Emery Cove Marina to KKMI in Richmond. We left the boom and main sail intact in the event of an engine failure. Russ checked his beautifully refurbished engine and pristine engine room half way through the short journey and everything looked and sounded fine. When he pulled into the slip at the dockyard, there was a lot of exhaust smoke/steam coming out the back.

Holy smoke! The hose clamp from the exhaust hose wasn't tightened enough and slipped down sometime between half-way and the end of the short hop; but in that short time, the entire engine room was covered with diesel soot and saltwater. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us. We weren't expecting to spend the entire rest of the morning scrubbing an cleaning, but that's exactly what we did. What a mess and it still needs more scrubbing. Russ was heartsick. Fortunately, there was no real damage. Russ got some better clamps and cranked them down...a lesson learned.

Once we got the engine room cleaned up, we took off the main sail, boom and vang, unscrewed saftey pins and screws in the turn buckles, and did as much of the prep as we could. Both of the masts will be removed during the haul out. Russ will be stringing new radio wire and antenna wire. We would also like to install a multi-directional night vision video cam on the top of the main mast and brackets on the mizzen mast for a wind generator. Of course I will have the scrub brush out. Seems to be my new lot in life. Two days into retirement and I've broken every nail (not that I had that much anyway), so I cut them way down and filed them close to the skin. We are going to have to invest in a lot of rubber gloves.

The boat was hauled late in the afternoon. The bottom paint still looked good, but there were a lot of critters and growth on the props and zincs that will need to be cleaned off and brushed. Russ is looking forward to cleaning and polishing the hull. While out of the water we will have the boat surveyed for insurance purposes. Hopefully if all goes well, we will be back in the water in two or three weeks and finish up with the Hydrovane, wind generator, and solar panels. The list is getting shorter, but so much to do.

Our list of vicarious sailors is growing! Hey jbarker0 are you out there? You left a comment for us on the last blog, but we had no way of contacting you since you had not established a profile. For a response, check out our return comment on the same blog. We love to hear from folks and are happy to answer your questions, but will have to do so on the comment section if you don't provide us with an email address or establish a profile. One month and 30 days from our sail away. We'll keep you posted. Wishing you a fresh breeze.