It's Always Something...

Gilda Radner wrote an inspirational book called "It's Always Something".   Although Gilda was dealing with more serious issues than broken boat things, I think "It's Always Something" is a good way to describe owning an old boat.   Maybe we should have named Drift Away "It's Always Something" instead.

Pam and I tried to get our dinghy registered at Connecticut DMV on Friday. It's a 13 foot Boston Whaler. After three hours there, we were told we can't register it because it wasn't listed on the bill of sale for the big boat. We showed the clerk a pic of our boat, "Look, it's attached to the roof." said I. Pam chimed in, "It's like buying a house with appliances!". Nope no deal. So we're going unregistered.  We'll have to stay at marinas so the dogs can get off the boat until we can get it registered somewhere.   Or maybe I can row it.   Or maybe I'll get rid of it and buy a new one.   The Annapolis Boat Show is coming up and maybe I can get a deal there.

So back to the boat Friday afternoon and I painted the stern.  Part of it was still wet on Sunday morning.  I mixed the Interlux "Perfection" (HAH!) two part paint carefully and stirred it well.   Don't know what went wrong.  The guy came Sunday morning to put the name and home port on.   This morning (Monday) the paint is still wet in spots.

The electronics guy was almost done, but called in sick on Friday and Saturday. He came back Sunday to try to finish up. Today, Monday morning, his tools are still here so he must have more to do.  I spoke to him via cell phone and he said the rudder indicator was working backwards.

Saturday I demolished the V-berth. It used to be two singles but a previous owner converted to a queen and added it's own head.

At first, I was disassembling it screw by screw, but after a time I decided to let my size 11 shoe finish it up.  I left the head because it's very nice, but I ripped out the furniture and drawers and put it back to two singles. It's a very nice storage space now.

Gary, one of my dog park buddies, came Saturday to powerwash the upper deck to remove 20 years of dirt, crud, and loose paint. He came back Sunday to finish. He was going to paint the decks with non-skid on Sunday with Interlux Deck paint but the directions say you can't walk on them for TWO FRIGGIN' DAYS after painting. So they're staying primed. Gary, it looks GREAT bud.  Thank you for taking two days out of your life to do that for us.  You're the best.

Pam and I drove the '56 T-bird and my Tacoma truck to upstate NY today to leave them at her dad's. We took the train back with Megan, Pam's daughter.  Three hours up (the T-Bird hit 85 MPH moving with traffic and drove like on rails!) and seven long, long hours back on the train.  Megan drove Pam's car back to upstate last night.   We're now car-less.
 
I decided it was time to plan our first trip, from Stamford to New York Harbor.  This involves heading west through Long Island Sound and into the East River.  This is a beautiful and fun boat ride but requires passing through Hell Gate, which is where the Harlem River and the East River meet.    The tidal current combined with the river current can produce standing waves and four knot currents.  Since Drift Away only does 8 knots tops, we want to hit it at slack high tide which gives us minimal waves and favorable currents.  

We had planned on leaving on Monday and so the idea is to find slack high tide for September 19th (3:30 PM) and then find the distance using charts.    Divide the distance by boat speed and subtract that from 3:30 PM and that gives you your departure time. 

One very nice feature of the Simrad electronics is a tides page that displays the tide cycles for your position.  We can't leave our marina at low tide because it's too shallow and as this pic shows, we have to leave well before (or after) 10:31 AM.

Here I am trying to walk the dividers over the chart.

We've decided, at the last minute, to replace the batteries on the boat on Monday and leave on Tuesday. That's two 8D house batteries, one battery for the generators, and one for the windlass. They're probably original on this 30 year old boat, and one of the 8Ds is OK but marginal. Since we've spent so much money on the boat so far, what's another boat buck?   New batteries all around!

So now we're leaving on Tuesday. One more day for boat projects will be good. I need to unfreeze a frozen deck fitting, the one for the pump-out. Nothing has worked to free it so far, so next I'm going to try a heat gun on it to see if I can melt whatever has gunked it up, hopefully without setting the boat on fire.   If that doesn't work, I'll have to figure out how to remove the old fitting and install a new one.

So all the major boat projects are just about done.  We've stopped the deck leaks, have two working engines and generators, have 95% of the navigation electronics installed, and myriad other tasks.  Just when I thought we were done spending money on stuff and could focus on cosmetics, Pam asked me to open the refrigerator door.   Why?   Just do it, said she.   So I did, and it fell off the hinges and onto the floor.