Next message: James Sovie: "Re: lv-ab: Registration #'s for inflatable tender"
Sorry not to respond to each one of you individually with thanks for your
kind and helpful and sometimes screamingly funny advice. I've been swamped
(pun intended) lately. So here's what I've decided to do (and not do) about
the various boat problems.
Leaks: I tented the entire foredeck with a giant plastic tarp during the
last rain storm and VOILA no leaks. Ok, so it doesn't look so great. And if
we have a big wind, I'll be in trouble. But it'll do for now. When the
weather gets chilly and the boat has been hauled for the winter, I'll hire
someone to take off the headliner and reseat each and every through-deck
fitting. [Some of you thought Puffin was wooden or even a sailing vessel and
she is neither. I should have been more specific about what we were dealing
with -- sorry about that!] My theory is that since the goop around the
hatches and stanchions is going, all the goop is probably going, so I might
as well fix it all and hope that this gets all the leaks. Once that's been
done, then I'll try the ol' vacuum/bubbles routine to check for missed leaks.
Then I'm replacing the entire headliner with epoxy-soaked wooden hollow core
door skins. Puffin has a lot of wood below anyway, and I think this will
look really nice. I don't like the look of bare fiberglass, although I know
it's a lot easier to deal with than fancy headliners.
Zincs: There's something about engines that just do not ring my chimes. I
know, I know, what am I doing in a power boat, then? But I have this
deep-seated sexist belief that women are not constitutionally fit for
fiddling with greasy engines. This is what men are for, that and taking out
the garbage. I've learned to take out my own garbage, but engines, well, I
think I have to draw the line there. Many of the suggestions I got were
excellent, others were irrelevant (again thinking I was on a sail boat when
I'm not), but all of them had one thing in common: I have to open up that
engine compartment and get in there and get greasy to find out where and how
to attach the dang fish. YUCK. So my solution is to call up my
long-suffering cousin who is the right gender for this sort of thing and
whine and moan until he comes over to help me out. Meanwhile, I have a zinc
on the rudder, and that'll have to do for the time being. I bribed a local
kid to dive under the boat, scrub her bottom (which it needed -- think
hanging gardens of Babylon), and check for corrosion. He said all looked
well, so I'm hoping I can get away with another week or so until my cousin
gets here.
Side curtains: These got stalled with a problem with bias binding tape. I
installed a big "smile" of a zipper only to discover that the binding tape I
was to use was too many layers to sew on to the "lips" and not bias binding,
so it didn't go around the curves very well. The solution suggested by
Sailrite was to get a hot knife and cut my own bias binding. Easier said
than done. I'm not sure if this may be the place where I throw up my hands
in disgust and give up on the whole project. Anyone out there with canvas
sewing experience who would be willing to email me privately so we can talk
about other possible solutions?
Unidentified wire: Those of you who thought this had something to do with ch
16 were correct. I have reconnected it, liking that feature. Now, if I
could just get my hair to lie down on my head again.....
Nina
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