Good Day

(A closeup of part of the dreaded in-mast furling system)

The last time we went out the mainsail jammed in the in-mast furler, the wind piped up something fierce, my crew member was unable to steer the boat properly as she could not see over the dodger (!)  and I was unable to clear the jammed sail as that entailed working on the coach roof by the mast...and somebody needed to steer. 

And yet, a good time was had by all, motoring around, drinking cold beer back on the mooring, deliberately leaving my phone in the truck and eating at the Park Lunch. This experience, these days spent doing nothing and yet doing everything, these are the highlights of summer.

Where the wild things are

Snow egret hunting on Ring's Island, Salisbury MA.

Chloe the boat dog, or Aye aye chihuahua!

A few years back if you had told me I'd own a dog I would have said you were crazy. If you'd told me that I'd own a 5 1/2 pound chihuahua that I found at the MSPCA I would have said you were crazier. If you told me that a highly-traumatized chihuahua would turn into the world's best boat dog...

A rainy day on the mooring

I decided that I'd spend the day onboard, "working" on the boat (i.e. puttering around, reading, napping, etc). Rain was predicted and the temperature was on the cool side so the idea was that the dog and myself would be comfortably ensconced in the cabin, with tea on the stove and some snacks.

Shortly after I took the picture in this post the wind started to gust over 25 kts, the temperature dropped 15 degrees in an hour and monsoon-like rain started to fall. During a lull in the rain I put the dog in the dinghy and we started for shore...and then the rain *un-lulled* and we wound up looking like drowned rats. 

I never DID get my tea and snacks. 

Rebuilding

After last year's disaster of a season (I had a terrible experience storing at a boatyard that's apparently run by pirates, followed by an oil leak in the engine that took two months to repair, followed by the pump out hose splitting at the end of the season and adding to the woes in the bilge) I took my sweet time fitting out this spring. 

The past couple of years the emphasis was on spring cleaning and cosmetics, including repainting the no-skid. Not so this year. This spring it was a new Jabsco diaphragm pump for the bilge, new hoses for the freshwater and sanitary systems, removing and cleaning the freshwater tank, cleaning and painting the bilge, cleaning and painting the chain locker, treating some minor corrosion on the forward chain plate with POR-15, throwing out a vast amount of "stuff" that was no longer needed, re-caulking some ports and on and on and on. 

S/V WOLF smells wonderful inside, the result of a clean bilge and a dry cabin. 

I ordered a complete kit of engine spares, one of everything that I've needed over the years, from Merri-Mar Marine. I had the mooring pennant replaced with one much sturdier, with a pick-up buoy so I don't have to go fishing for the pennant with a boat pole. 

And then I launched. 

And it was wonderful. 

She sails!

Friday turned into a fiasco; the impeller in the fresh-water pump was fine, but we wasted most of the day troubleshooting, roasting in the sun on Newburyport's public landing and generally getting aggravated. The afternoon thunderstorms arrived about an hour or so after Wolf was back on her mooring.

Well, I figured if it isn't the pumps causing the overheating it had to be the thermostat, so I ordered a new one through MerriMar (and once again, was screwed by the price of Volvo parts). Before I ordered the part I explained my diagnosis to Billy K, the mechanic at Merrimar, and he agreed..

Saturday I yanked the thermostat out and ran the engine without it; no overheating problem.

Sunday, we sailed. Out of the mouth of the Merrimack and into doldrums, but I managed to find enough wind to carry us out a bit further to where the wind was waiting. There was enough wind to roll in a reef on the main but the mainsail furler worked perfectly this time. I tried whole bunch of different points of sail before settling on a beam reach that carried us up to Hampton, then we ran in towards shore before gybing and beam-reaching back home. Wolf is unbelievably comfortable to sail, and I'm sure the confidence I felt while handling her will get me into shitloads of trouble only grow.

The Merrimack was the typical weekend zoo, but the engine worked perfectly, we just made the bridge opening (note to self: budget 25 minutes from entrance to bridge), and spent the afternoon napping in the sun.

Now, no good deed goes unpunished, and the joker valve on the head decided to pack it in, threatening to add several hundred gallons of water as ballast if I hadn't closed that seacock. That's an easy repair and not unexpected; I'm sure that the head hasn't been lubricated per Peggy Hall's instructions for years.

All in all, a good day.

About time,too!

Fancy photoshopped image courtesy of Susie B.

The weather's looking iffy, the engine seems to run fine but a tad hotter than I'd like, and the low tide is fairly early in the morning*. But I've got the day off, the morning weather looks like it will hold, and the engine DID run for 40+ minutes last week just fine...

...so tomorrow, the ocean.

And it's about time, too.

*The smart boaters in the Merrimack depart with the outgoing and return on the incoming, unless there's an east wind, in which case much beer is consumed before napping while staying on the mooring.