The never-ending project to fill my hole in the ocean while bailing it out

Sailing Season ‘10 has arrived

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Description

Today I began cleaning and scrubbing out the cabin, starting with hauling the wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner aboard, removing all the dust and loose stuff. It's always surprising to find how dirty a boat's interior can get, just sitting out there on its mooring all summer. When I launched last spring, the cabin was immaculate. Here we go again.  (May 13, 2010)

With most of my office work-work caught up, Barbara on vacation in Nevada, and the sun shining (though it's cool), I dug in at the bow and started scrubbing with a bucket of water-Lysol-bleach mix. I completed the forward v-berth section and will move aft on the cabin next.

Wally Riddle, Michael Sullivan and I trailered Chip Ahoy to Riverhead Beach on May 25, launched the next morning on the tide. I've finally, after all these years, met my target -- to be in the water by Memorial Day Weekend!  (May 26, 2010)

See:  Launching for the 2010 Sailing Season

With Chip Ahoy still stern-heavy, I went out today and moved what I could in the cabin more forward but there wasn't much that could be. The "food larder," a large, flat "Tupperware" container holding canned goods, bread, utensils, and snacks -- maybe 15 pounds -- usually stowed beneath the starboard cockpit seat, I relocated to the v-berth. After a few more tweaks of rigging, I went out for a short sail, almost to Misery Island before the weather began to look threatening. Still not satisfied that Chip Ahoy was fully seaworthy, I headed back to the mooring. I arrived just before a brief shower. Thunderstorms passed north and south of Marblehead, but bypassed us.  (May 29, 2010)

Today -- a weather-perfect Memorial Day but for a strange haze -- I went out again on another shakedown sail, and found more tweaks that needed attention, and a new problem.

I noticed the single-line reefing system was rigged incorrectly, the line going through the wrong grommets both forward and aft. Underway I was able to straighten this out, reroute the line and bring it back to the cockpit.

There was a strange haze over the entire area in the morning; from home I thought it was fog, but there was also a smoky smell when I got down to the dock. This turned out to be from widespread forest fires more than 200 miles to our north, in Quebec, carried down the coast by a "backdoor cold front"!

The new problem that arose is with the Hummingbird HDR 610 depth sounder. It started out working in the morning but quickly began acting buggy, flashing on and off until it finally died. Its settings buttons still work, but it's not reading depth. Grr, a new problem.

The outboard (right) is still sitting too low in the water. There's little more I can do now but run out the gas in the two 6-gallon tanks and hope this sufficiently raises the transom.  (May 31, 2010)

A severe thunderstorm hit us last night, knocked out the electricity at home until after 8:00 this morning. My plan was to go out to the boat, make sure everything survived (I forgot to unplug the VHF antenna coax cable from the back of the radio when I last left the boat, and hoped it hadn't been struck again!), and install the new Humminbird depth sounder and Sangean H201 AM/FM radio.

While I have the CCRadio-Plus with its independent solar charger and all the other accessories, carrying it back and forth is too big a nuisance, so I decided I wanted one I could leave aboard. The Sangean -- being a "shower" radio (never heard of such a thing) -- is waterproof, so it should resist moisture and corrosion better than most. The label on it claims that it floats. I don't believe this whatsoever, and don't intend to test that claim!

Humminbird wanted a base $77 just to evaluate the problem with my failed unit; $99.99 for a new one. I ordered another HDR 610 and it arrived yesterday. With more nasty weather forecast for today, I decided it would be a work-aboard day. There was little if any wind anyway. The 20 gusting to 30 mph winds never materialized, the predicted severe thunderstorms never arrived.

Having left the boat's former toolbox and many spare parts ashore this season to lessen weight, planning for what I'd need to do the two small jobs took a little planning ahead.

I got the radio's mounting bracket fastened on the bulkhead, the radio mounted, then replaced the depth sounder. This time, I used the white face plate on the cockpit side of the unit instead of the black one.  (Jun. 5, 2010)

After a week of waiting to hear back from the Fred J. Dion boatyard (within sight of Chip Ahoy's mooring) about bolting on the Windex since Monday [I spoke and left my card with Luke, that yard's lift guy], since being told this morning to "find someplace else" [Tom Hayden, manager] this morning, I found someplace else and returned to my usual standby -- Marblehead Trading Company. It took a 'drive' around the peninsula back to almost Riverhead Beach and the Cliff Street boatyard, near where we launched a week or two back, but it got done upon arrival -- and it was a good excuse to be out on the water on a Friday morning!  (Jun. 11, 2010)