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.

Washout

The weekend was essentially a complete washout, with the "highlight" being completely drenched while on the Salisbury town pier checking the dinghy.

I also got soaked for the price of the ignition switch. Volvo's pricing policy for spare parts apparently constitutes piracy of the highest order.

Got the ignition switch installed Sunday, checked the coolant level in the engine and then ran it for 45 minutes. The water temperature didn't climb above 180F, which is good, but the idiot gauge needle climbed into the red. Slowly, to be sure, but still into the red. I'm suspecting that I need to replace the freshwater pump impeller, which I ought to do just to be on the safe side anyway, and the thermostat to boot. The engine was dry for close to two years, so it's no shock that the impellers might be in poor shape.

I had an old friend* ask me if I missed my Pearson. The honest answer would be "yes, but..." in that I miss the familiarity I had with the Pearson, but the Wolf is a much more capable boat, one that will take me wherever I want to go, and I'm completely fascinated with her. I'm also enjoying the whole process of fixing her up, working on the diesel, and having a 'new' boat to buy stuff for, etc.

My friend Betsy is having the same experience: she recently put her Quickstep 24, Puffin, up for sale after purchasing a Cape Dory 30. Last year we had both vowed that we'd never part with our boats, and this year we've both got different ones.

I guess the answer to the "do you miss your Pearson" question is: yes, a little, but things change, and it's not missing in a tragic "I miss you!" manner but more of a nostalgic kind of missing.

*No name, but we had some adventures together on the Pearson...including a previously-mentioned incident involving a certain can in the Merrimack River.