Worrall Travel R's

Worrall Travel R's
Roz and Russ

Worrall Travel R's - Kicking the Bucket List

Showing posts with label Getting Set - August 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Getting Set - August 2009. Show all posts

Monday, August 24, 2009

Vindication and New Sails

Hello All,

Since we saw many of you last at our party, it's been non-stop work and organization on Worrall Wind and the home front. Before I move on to what we have been doing the past two weeks, I wanted to share a couple of shared party pictures. One is from niece Teresa, the Worrall Family; two is of wedding party 1969 by cousin Dot, and third photo is from friend Alexis which vindicates me from the cake in the face incident. It's a terrific pictue of the real culprit. The expressions are priceless. Thank you all for sharing your day and photos with us.

After the party, we tore the boat apart once again! We have been busy wiring solar panels, wind generator, anchor lights, fans, etc.. It's exciting to see that our solar panels are producing amps! Yeah!

Our wind meter is broken so we are looking into a replacement for that. The original was made in Germany and it seems we can't get the replacement part we need so it looks like a whole new unit. We bought two large coolers for the back deck which will serve as seats and deck boxes. Russ refloored the engine room and made a battery box out of starboard for our new golf-cart batteries. Looks terrific and clean. We'll see how long that lasts.



Kami from Pineapple Sails installed our three new sails and one refit mizzen sail as a riding sail to keep us from swinging while at anchor.We are almost finished assembling our ditch bag which is about 1/2 the weight of our lifeboat, and all of our travel arrangements for our trip to Garyn and Jessica's wedding in Tuscany have been completed along with finding a berth in Ventura for the boat while we are away. Still outstanding is our boat's refrigeration system. It's now three weeks behind schedule, and we are getting a little concerned that this will stall our departure date. Russ is working on this challenge today. This week we will be back and forth to the boat, offloading things we no longer need, and loading stuff we need and want to take, getting final innoculations and medications. Only 13 more days until we cast off. We are looking forward to stopping the schizophrenia of having one foot on land and the other on the boat.

Monday, August 10, 2009

TRIPLE WOW! Retirement, Anniversary, Bon Voyage



We don’t know where to begin to express our delight and appreciation to over 150 family and friends who came to our triple triumph party at the Berkeley Yacht Club, Sunday August 9, 2009 to celebrate our retirement, our 40th wedding anniversary (married August 9, 1969) and our Bon Voyage on our Worrall Crusier!
It was so wonderful seeing all of you! We know the majority of you traveled great distances, fought the Bay Area traffic, and cunningly found parking places within a mile of the Yacht Club! Sunday was one of the most beautiful summer days on the Bay and sailors were at the marina in force. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day, however a few more parking spots would have been nice.

We would like to especially thank family and friends who came early to set up, picked up cakes, drinks, ice, and stayed late to clean up, and who were on hand throughout the day to keep the table filled with food, ice chests filled with drinks, sign people in, take photos, run errands, carry stuff to and from the boat.

Speaking of photos, many of you took photos with your own cameras, and we would love to have digital copies sent to us, particularly when Russ and I were cutting our anniversary cake and our cameras all seemed to mysteriously lose their power at the same time. What a sweet surprise to have our friend Marshall, play the wedding march on his harmonica. And just so you know and I can vindicate myself, I didn’t purposely smash cake into Russ’s nose. I had an unexpected elbow pump from our mischievous son. Really!

Our only real regret of the day is that we didn’t have enough time to talk with anyone at great length or even a short length. Many folks were not able to attend because of other difficulties including heavy traffic (no they weren't all coming to the party). When we returned home on Tuesday, there were 15 messages on the home phone from people who found out they could come after all (it would have been fine to come without an RSVP), couldn't come, or lost directions. We are sorry we missed your call and you at the party. We will have to do a better job at checking the home messages in the future. Please keep in touch with us and check the blogpot to see when we will be in the vicinity. We will look forward to getting together with you in July, August, January, and February (or parts of those months). Ask us for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and we will share our slides and stories. Your continued support and love along with the wind will propel us on our journey.

Nevertheless, the party was truly wonderful, and we hope those of you who made it, had as much fun as we did. Too bad there wasn’t enough food! What a feast. Thank you for your generous contributions of hors d’oeurves. We will have to have another party just to consume the wine and Champaign many of you gifted us with. We read through all of the cards on Monday morning and enjoyed the sentiments and personal notes. Don and Diane gave us a card with a sailboat and the sentiment "The Adventure Continues". What a treasure.


Thanks Ted and Marian for the rubber ducky thermometer and ship in a bottle kit, Linda and Gary for the compass, Margo and Dave for the Creative License Guide and sketch pad, Mary and Bob for the cousins photo album, Johnny and Bev for the boat cushions, Mom and Dad for the onboard games, and Linda and Bill for the Left at the Golden Gate Travel Bug. We’ll log it in and out at caches along the way www.geogaching.com . Thanks for taking care of our cache "In and Out" while we are traveling.

Chronology of the week before the party:

Thursday:

We finally got Worrall Wind scrubbed up from the boatyard grit, 250 gallon water tanks filled up, out of the boat yard, and over to the BYC dock on the Thursday evening before the party. But the rebuilt alternator wasn't working as well as it should possibly having suffered from saltwater damage from our mishap to Richmond the beginning of July. So Russ has added another little project to the “short” list.

Friday: Russ taught at Cal while Roz cleaned, oiled and polished inside of boat. There is no running water at the BYC dock so outside cleanup was limited. That’s why we scrubbed down at the shipyard before we left.

Saturday: We worked on several little projects that would make the boat presentable for Sunday – stained some teak rails and steps, installed solar panels, installed a blade on the wind steering system, re-installed the hardware and the front part of the aft bimini, and finished inside cleanup.

Our children and their significant others (Garyn and fiance Jessica, Abby and boyfriend Neal) gave us an eleventh-hour-hand polishing the boat and raising our convertible Ampair wind/water generator late Saturday afternoon and early evening, before we all enjoyed a family dinner. It might be the last time the six of us are together in one place for a while.





Sunday: Along with our regular flags, we raised our Baja Ha Ha 2009 flag for the first time, Seven Seas Cruising flag, and our Time Flies When You Are Having Rum - Jolly Rogers Flag, that we picked up in the Caribbean last year, decorated for the party, and spent a wonderful afternoon with family and friends.

Monday: We spent the morning leisurely reviewing the previous day, opening cards, putting things away, and securing the boat for her ride over to Emery Cove. I drove the car and Russ motored Worrall Wind over to our berth. The Bay was absolutely flat with no wind.

This week, we anticipate that our refrigerator, freezer, and new sails will be installed. We both need to turn our attention to studying for our general class HAM license that is only a couple of weeks away. Russ is almost ready, but woefully, I am far from a passing score. We have a lot of home chores and details to attend to. I hope to get around to writing individual thank you notes, but it may not be for a while, maybe I’ll have some time from the Galapagos to the Marqueses. In the meantime, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing our trimple triumph with us. Love to you all.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Out of the Shipyard!

Yeah! Worrall Wind is back in the water. Her masts are up. Russ motored her over to the Berkeley Marina for our Bon Voyage party. Now we are getting all of the shipyard grime off her decks and things back in order. At the end of each shipyard visit we receive a bottle of wine with our invoice. We got two bottles of wine this time...proportionate I guess to the invoice! Seems to me we should have gotten a case. Our refrigeration system should be completed next week and our new sails installed.

Some of these things won't be ready for the party, but it looks like we are on target for launch on September 5. There is an ebb tide the morning of September 5 with slack current at 8:49. If all systems are go, including favorable weather and no fog, we anticipate sailing or motoring under the Golden Gate between 8:30 - 9:00 in the morning for any of you who wish to watch us go out. Be sure to bring a light colored flag, hanky, pompom to wave so we can spot you at Fort Point or on the bridge. We would love it if you share your videos or photos with us. On the evening of September 4, I will confirm our intentions. By 6:00 a.m. on September 5, I'll post again in the event there have been any changes. Please check the blogspot for updates. In the event it is a foggy morning, we may delay departure until later in the morning.

Check out the new feature in the left navigation bar called Where in the Worrall. That's it for now. Back to the scrub brush. More after the party!