Saturday, December 26, 2009

there's a hole in my boat

And I'm the one that put it there. The one area where I ignored John Welsford's instructions was putting a drain hole underneath the mizzen step. I mean how much water could run down the the mizzen and end up pooling in the step and surrounding case? A lot, I found out. One decent little rainstorm could fill that box. No big deal on a day sail. But when out for a few days I didn't like the idea of the bottom of the mizzen sitting in a few inches of water for the extended time. Should have listened to John in the first place. I've drilled the hole (about 5/8 inches diameter) and now need to seal the wood with epoxy and then paint it. I'll do that along with the other epoxy work and painting I need to do this winter.
I did get a nice West Marine gift card for Christmas from one of my brothers (thanks, Tom). I ran right to the store and picked up some line, spark plugs and eye straps. The red line is for reefing outhauls. I've used odd pieces of white or green line in the past. I figure it is time to make outhauls just the right size and have them in red so they are easier to spot. The white line is to replace some sail ties that have frayed. The eye straps will be used with bungee cords to hold the fire extinguisher next to frame number two under the front part of the coaming. And I usually go through three spark plugs each year - one each for spring, summer or fall.
When I shot the photo of my West Marine supplies I found some other photos on the card from a summer sail. They brought back some nice memories of last season's sailing.
The photo below shows one of the guide posts on my trailer. On trips I try to gather those Euro style stickers from each town visited. I've got quite a few on the trailer now. On this post you'll see stickers from Beaufort (the SkeeterBeater trip), Eastern Shore of Virginia (Tangier Sound trip) and Cedar Island (fall '07 sail) . I hope to collect a few more stickers next year.

steve

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