Jinx Day

Marathon, Florida
24 42.40 081 N 05.68 W

Man oh man.  What a day.   I do more than my fair share of dumb stunts.  One of them was this morning.

I had a quart of marine topside paint -- battleship gray.  My plan was to use it in the engine compartment and to paint the inside of the dinghy.  I started in the engine compartment.  

To get access, I have to lift off the cockpit sole (floor).  Just last week I redid the holddowns on the sole with new weather stripping, 10 cap screws and t-nuts.   I removed it all and did my work in the engine compartment.  So far so good. 

Then I planned to put the sole back in the cockpit, and finish up painting the dinghy.  As I was doing that, the sole bumped the open can of paint.  Almost a whole quart of paint spilled on the cockpit seats, the cockpit well walls, the sole, and below. Oh no, what a collosal mess!

I enlisted Libby's help.  With a roll of paper towels and a quart of acetone, we started cleaning up the mess.  Luckily I had just bought a fresh quart of acetone so we had a lot.   When I lifted the sole to see how much paint leaked through I found that much of the paint ran down the channel at the side and down the cockpit drain.   I looked out.  I didn't see any paint on the surface of the water, but the inside of the drain was all gray.   I poured some acetone down the pipe.  It is 1.5" drain pipe and it should not  be clogged by paint.  I'll test it tomorrow for it's draining capacity.

Of course the clean up was like a Chineese Fire Drill.  We got paint on our hands and shoes, and soon we were doing more harm than good, spreading paint in more places than we were cleaning.  Time out to clean our hands and shoes and then finish the job.  

There was about 4 oz of paint left in the can.  I used it up in the dinghy.  Down in the dinghy I noticed that Libby had tied it off using only the painter.  I like to use a stern line as a 2nd safety.  I did that. Then I went  back on board Tarwathie to change clothes and clean myself more thoroughly.   I packed my shower stuff and started to head to shore for a shower.

When I looked out, the dinghy was trailing behind Tarwathie by only the stern line.  The painter line had chafed and broken!   If I had not tied the 2nd safety line, our dinghy would have disappeared downwind for the second time this year.

Libby said, "Jinx Day."  I can't disagree.  I'll make it a point to do as little as possible for the rest of the day to limit exposure (how's that for an excuse to do nothing?)

By the way, the chafed line was 1/4 three strand polypropylene.  It was the only floating line I had.  It chafed where it goes through the hawse pipe.  The past 3 days have been very windy, so the dinghy bounced around a lot.  I'm going to replace it with 3/8 polypropylene box braid.  I'll also start using a length of fire hose as a chafe guard on the painter.  You see, on a double ended boat with a monitor in the back, we can not let the dinghy trail behind us at night.   If the wind stops blowing, the dinghy runs into the stern and works its way under the monitor.  Then the rocking of the boat starts bashing the dinghy with the monitor and I have to get up in the middle of the night to move the dingy to another spot.  Most sailboats have squared transoms and can tie of their dinghy to the stern or to raise it on davits.