Saturday, February 10, 2007

Quick trip to Kemah

What can I do in a day and a half?

1. Pull spare sails and take them to Neil Pryde for review and repair. (Spare main, genoa, mizzen, mizzen staysail, storm trysail, and spinnaker)
2. Remove windlass, disassemble, and take for sandblasting.
3. Pull all chain from locker and mark 25ft & 100 ft intervals with zip ties and secure the bitter end.
4. Pull autopilot pump and determine cause of fluid leak. Repair if possible.
5. Remove captains chair and epoxy open holes.
6. Check cockpit speakers and replace if wires are live.
7. Find a way to fold dodger forward while underway
8. Remove/replace fish finder

I am overshooting a realistic goal for this weekend. I know already that I will only be able to do either one or two, and not both. Both shops close by noon on Saturday and the sand blaster is way north east of downtown. I am waiting to hear if the sail shop is open or if he is out racing this Saturday. That answer will make my decision for me.

Three and four both came up when Kris and I went to Offats Bayou. While the ground tackle worked great, I realized I had no way of knowing how much chain I had let out. I’ll use multi colored zip ties to mark the chain in bright color so I know I have the right amount of scope. Dragging anchor seems to easy to prevent not to better understand my tackle. The autopilot just loses it’s fluid almost immediately. Upon first inspections is seemed to come at the housing opening for the ram. I know jack about hydraulic pumps so this should be interesting.

There is a feature on this boat that never fails to elicit comment from the sailing community. That damn captains chair in the cockpit. It really isn’t all that functional since you can’t see over the dodger in it anyway, so I think it has to go. A little west system epoxy and we can take a big step towards cleaning up our cockpit. There is generally just too much clutter.

The rest of the list are more random odds and ends I though I would remind myself of in case I make good headway on the other projects. Even though she is on the hard I am happy to be getting back to Romance.

I want to say a quick thanks to those readers who are writing in. Your comments and encouragement are extremely helpful. I’d encourage any others who are following along to drop me a comment at the end of this post or an email from my main page. In fact, I’ll pose a question to you. Given the choice between two lives, one of safety, security, and routine the other of great joy, hardship, and adventure would a man chose the safe, but mundane? When did we stop risking all to make our own positions in life better? Has pure, unadulterated capitalism really become the only, unquestioned way to raise ourselves and others up?

2 comments:

Sandra said...

Some people are able to combine their love of great hobbies and capitalism. Those fortunate few, such as Bill Gates make fortunes.

Anonymous said...

we are slaves and we dont know it hey lee or they are ..the mass of men leading lives of quite desparation just like our buddy thoreau quotes.good on you for what your doing dude,your so right in your attitude .So many people are so scared and brainwashed these days by the media and so forth that a feat like yours seems beyond their comprehension ...what are you and how are you going to do to survive when your old and have to retire and all that shit is what comes into their head too easily.i just have to look at my grandparents and many others i have observed that have played it too safe sitting back in their crappy retirement homes with dribble starting to come down their face to know that a life of adventure and risk is the way to go for me phil from australia