Yard Work

Starcraft Boatyard, Oriental NC
35 N 71 W

I haven't kept up with blogging.  Too busy working.  Cruisers really prove the saying, "work-work play-play"   We play almost all the time and we really have fun.  However, when the boat is up on the hard in a dusty, hot boatyard, the priories are flipped.  We just want to finish our jobs and get out of here.   That makes for 12 hour days, working one's butt off.

It also shows up our aging bodies.  Never before has this boatyard work seemed so hard and so exhausting.  I'm afraid that we may graduate into the mode of paying expensive laborers to do the work for us.

On Friday Libby fell off the ladder.  Not far, only about 3 feet.  She wasn't hurt, but it demonstrates the point about our aging bodies. She said that it wasn't so much exhaustion, but rather the oppressive heat.

My plan is to let a mechanic do some work on the engine Tuesday, and splash on Wednesday AM.  However, that plan may have to bend because Tropical Storm Beryl will be over us on Wednesday.

The pictures below show the before and after views of Tarwathie's bottom.  We use ablative paint, and each successive coat gets a different color.  That way we can see how much the paint is worn by looking at the color.  The most recent paint was red, and under that is blue.  In the top picture (sorry for fuzzy focus) you can see where blue is showing through.

I screwed up on paint selection.  The new paint should have been black, but I bought blue.  Too bad.  The bottom picture shows her after the first coat.   The blue smurf dressed in white is yours truly.

Sorry for the poor focus

 

p.s. Last night Richard and Penny from Viking Rose came over from nearby.  We had dinner together at the Toucan Grill.  That was a fun reunion.  We haven't seen those two in two years.  Bowing to the bad economy, Richard took a full time job in Atlanta to replenish their sailing kitty.  They moved there.  However, in Atlanta Penny has really discovered herself as an artist, in competitive art show circuits.  She's doing very well.

p.p.s. We also met two very nice new friends, Drake and Mo on the W42 Paragon. Drake has an interesting history.  He single handed 7 years on a W32, then he traded up to a W42.  He single handed that too and he's sailed about everywhere between Nova Scotia and Venezuela. Drake and Mo are planning to sail to Ireland next spring.  Good luck to them.  See their youtube channel.  Search for drakeparagon on youtube.

p.p.p.s. Libby likes this boatyard better than the one in Deltaville, VA.  I think it will be a regular stop for us in the future.