Weekend

On Sat'y we installed a hitch on my car so I may tow the boat - it was supposed to take 30 minutes, but instead took 10 hours and 30 minutes, because they sent the wrong bolts with it.

But now I can install a hitch on a car!

We (rather, the Physicist) played with the trailer winch that had rusted - I hadn't realized the importance of this. Apparently, as it was, if I went up a hill, the boat could have slid off the trailer and the winch would not have stopped it.

Whoops.

But we're that much closer to launching the boat - the goal is Labor Day weekend...

On Sun'y, I had the unique experience of teaching my parents to use their new computer.
Neither have used one before.
It's amazing how vast and subtle the skills required to use a computer are - from manipulating the mouse to intuitively understanding how to navigate a web page to the vocabulary: email, Gmail, scroll down, click, cursor, etc...
Today's xkcd was terribly topical to this issue.
We went through the process of powering it on and off no less than 6 times - and I am proud to boast that I got an email this morning, which meant they remembered how to do it.

My little birds have learned to fly!!! *sniff*

Sailboat!

So you get a sense of what we're dealing with.

A coat of paint here, some new hardware there - not too bad!
If you click on the image, it will take you to you original photo album... (bigger, better pics.)

Removing weathered wood... and frustration.

Yesterday was the culmination of some not-so-fun things at work.
I won't bore you with the details, but frustration is the key word.

I chose to skip the Great Lakes show and instead head to the Physicist's to work on the boat.

Most of the hardware has a piece of wood between the metal and the fiberglass that acts as a large washer - much of it had become too weathered or completely disintegrated.

So I thought, "What better way to work off the frustrations of the office than by going at rusted metal." Rusted, by the way, because someone sold my father hardware that was not, as claimed, stainless steel.

I put on the trusty pink headlamp, grabbed the toolbox and settled into the bulkhead to start... wait... ew... what is...?

We had cleaned it - but we didn't look UP.

All along the "ceiling" of the stowing area up front were wasp's and mud dauber's nests...

awesome.

So I got out some gloves, some scraping implements and spent an hour making those disappear.

We got out most of the hardware with little resistance, but at the back, the motor mount proved challenging.

The last bolt was attached under the seat and my father had installed a porthole to get to it... but it was still difficult - I almost broke my hand holding the bolt still with a wrench while the Physicist used a ratchet socket wrench to loosen it. The wood looked weathered, but it was cherry and quite good once you got past the exterior.

By the time 9pm rolled around, the office frustration had melted away - no racing, anxious thoughts about what I had to do at work - he made me a cup of Ovaltine (he recently learned of my love of Horlick's, but didn't have any so Ovaltine was the next best thing... malty and sweet and good.)

I went home tired and sated with a good dose of accomplishment, a good way to end a frustrating day.

Coincidence

We got the Javelin on Sunday, delivered on its trailer (which was put on a trailer - how meta).
We cleaned it up with broom, power-washer, eco-friendly soap and gallons of elbow grease, making it look much better and showing that for 10 years in the elements, it has held up quite well.

At various times in the past 10 years that I've waited to work in this boat, I've asked around about this model and whether there are folks in the area who are familiar with it. I never got much of a response and, at one point, it was suggested I sell it and buy a model that people use at local yacht clubs.

Just this past year, a few coincidences came together to make this project seem positively Providencial...

• The doctor at the clinic next door is a member of the same board I belong to, and we work on the same community garden. At a board meeting he asked if I would be continuing in the garden this summer and I answered that I would, but that I planned to restore a sailboat with much of my free time.
• Not only does the doctor sail, but he sails the same model - and has since offered to copy the owner's manual (something I do not have).
• The best blog online outlining a sailboat restoration is one about a Javelin. An older model, but still essentially the same.
• I have long tried to find a friend who would be willing to let me use their garage for this project - and I found one - a friend who has not only offered his garage, but his tools and his efforts - making this exponentially easier.
  
• The blog - which is not necessarily local - lists the address of a Javelin "guru," and he happens to live 3.5 miles from where I am working on the boat.

I search online to find those people from across the nation and across the world who may have information and it turns out the one person who can help the most lives within biking distance of the one person who provided the place necessary to complete a project that's been on hold for over 10 years.

It simply strikes me as... almost too perfect.

But I'm at a place in my life where "too perfect" is a perfectly acceptable way to be.

Grease monkey

Last weekend Physicist and I went to my uncle's and picked up the outboard motor that hasn't worked in almost a decade.

I know nothing of building and/or rebuilding motors.
Carburetors? Nope.
Pistons? Uh-uh.
Crankshafts? What?

But I can't wait to figure it out.

We're getting a barrel from a friend of a friend once we clean it, because you can't work on an outboard unless its propeller is in water (I actually knew this - yay, me!)

The trailer has new wheels - now I just have to get my parents to the Title Bureau to transfer it to me so I can secure a trailer license and haul the beast to the garage.

Pics will come soon!

At the very least, it feels good to finally move forward on a project I've been aching to get started for years.

Hurrah for forward momentum!

Contentment

I'm pretty happy these days.
That's a wonderful thing.
But it seems to result in less blog posts.
I don't know why this is, other than I have a lot less angst to sort out these days, and this format was great for weighing the Great Questions of Life.
I still have questions - but there's a much different tone to them now.

I think I may engage in some housecleaning here, maybe rearrange some things.

There is a spectacular project looming on the horizon - something I've been chomping at the bit to start for years - my father has a 14' sailboat that is now mine and it needs W O R K. I have a place to put it and hands to help - now I just need to get it from my uncle's farm to a garage east of the city.

Wish me luck! I want to be sea-worthy by August!