I finally got down to the marina again. I haven’t been able to get down here for a whole bunch of reasons, and it was good to be back on the Pretty Gee again.
Friday, I spent a good part of the day getting her ready to be put back in the water. Most of the work involved scraping barnacles from her hull. The worst part was the inboard side of the port ama—a layer of barnacles four inches high, along most of its length.
Early Saturday morning—I was up a bit before dawn and made myself some oatmeal for breakfast. The air temperature was pretty cool, given how warm the previous day had been. I had both the hatches open overnight, with the screens in because of the mosquitos down in this part of the state. There is something very peaceful about being on a boat for me, especially this boat—even when she’s on the hard.
Sitting in the cockpit, watching the sunrise, while eating breakfast—life is good. There’s a lot going on in my life that make it complicated right now—many of the reasons I haven’t been out sailing or down at the marina as much as I’d like to be are among them—but for the moment, I can’t complain.
I spent the early part of the morning tidying up lines on the boat—sheets, halyards, docklines, furling lines, and the topping lift. I still need to put a messenger line in place to use to bring down the three halyards and topping lift after I raise the mast.
Originally, I had pulled her from the water to get the hull repainted, but I’ve decided that the season is getting short, and that I can wait until I pull her for the season to have that work done. It was good to have her out of the water for most of the month of August—I wasn’t here to use her, and it gave me a chance to scrape most of the barnacles off of her and inspect her. When Arion got to the marina a few hours later, he helped me put her back where she belongs—in the water. I am still getting familiar to using the trailer.
We got the Pretty Gee off the trailer and tied up to the service dock. I checked the engine, and then pumped the fuel bulb and started up the outboard motor. It was time to put her back in her slip. I backed her down the channel and into her slip. Once she was tied back up, I hooked up her shore power connection and turned on the battery charger and refrigerator.
I spent most of Saturday writing. Pen and paper… working on the book, “No Greater Love”, that I’ve been writing off and on for the last five years. It is hard work. You’d think that after five years, it’d get a bit easier to put down on paper. Going down to Newport News for Woo’s wedding really brought some memories back. Gee should have been there—but she wasn’t. I really have to bring my laptop down next time… I write much better on the laptop—writing via pen and paper kills my wrist.
Sunday morning, I called Dave. He was planning on heading down and helping me with the roller furling unit on the Pretty Gee. When Dave arrived, we went out for breakfast. Then we stopped by the local West Marine store. I wanted to get a new light fixture for over the navigation station, that has both a red light and a white light, to help preserve night vision.
I picked up two replacement LED bulbs. I plan on putting these in the two light fixtures I use most on the boat to help conserve electricity. I’m recycling the old navigation station light fixture, and putting it up on the forward starboard bulkhead, so I can use it for a reading lamp. It and the main cabin light will get the LED bulbs.
I also got another padeye and some stainless steel rivets that I need for the radar reflector and flag halyards. I plan on setting up a port and starboard flag halyards to the lower spreaders on the boat. I also want to put a radar-reflector/dayshape halyard that goes to the starboard upper spreader. I have some 3 mm line that I plan on using for the flag halyards and some small Harken blocks. I do need to get some 1/4″ line for the radar reflector halyard.
One project that I had to do was to replace a foil section on the headsail furling unit. I also wanted to clean and re-grease the bearings in the furling unit itself. Getting the furling drum apart was a pain, but I’m glad I did it. Now, if I have a problem with it in the future, I know how it is put together. The drum has four sets of bearings. I cleaned, re-greased and repacked the lower three sets. The top set seemed to be in fairly good shape, so I left it alone. The Stay-Loc fitting was a pain to get apart. Putting the Stay-Loc back together was pretty easy to do though.
Once we had the foil section replaced and the furling drum back together, Dave and I carried the furling unit down to the boat. He carried the drum up to the bow and I climbed up and put the foil along the mast, which is down at the moment.
Then I had Dave put the upper clevis pin in to the top end of the headstay—having tall crew is very useful. We used a two-by-four to brace the foil and help support the furling drum. This upcoming week I should have the flag halyards and the radar reflector installed. I plan on putting the mast and sails back up on next Saturday.
I’ve also found where I’ll be putting the second solar ventilator. It will be installed just forward of the mast step. This should give me pretty good air flow through the boat. I’ve gotten a lot of the modifications I’ve wanted on the boat done. Next season, I should have her in fairly good shape to do some longer trips.