Short Update while Jennifer sleeps

Lee’s Landing, Seattle Ship Canal, 1-Aug-2019 – Jennifer is asleep; Seattle’s traffic volume across the ‘‘99’’ bridge above me rises. The sky is clear, and there are two hurricanes, Erick and Flossie headed to Hawaii.†

Sometimes it seems better to write about a task beforehand rather than during the throes of frustration during the task. Today, we install the windows.

Tasks have been going very well, all-in-all.

We finished painting the hull above the rub rail so Caro Babbo no longer has her distinctive blue livery (more about that in the footnotes*).

On the engine, the permanent coolant has been installed, the new formed raw water hose has been installed – special order from Adairsville Georgia – a replacement impeller installed, prophylactic. Lists of smaller items can go on forever. Whenever one needs a break from a task or completes a task, there are many smaller tasks to fill up what could be idle time. But there does come a time at the end of the day, when it is time to stop.

I did not stop when I should have and destroyed a brand new stern light – I’m letting American Express’ buyer protection insurance bail me out of that mistake.

We’ve delayed our shake down cruise by four days because we didn’t want the crush and are delaying leaving for the big trip because marina mates have asked to travel part of the way with us.

I haven’t learned enough about marinas in Hawaii and where we will keep Caro Babbo, I haven’t built the solar panel mounts, and we haven’t finished repairing the headline, which will be installed after the windows.

The list of what has been finished is good, rewarding, but can’t be dwelled upon.

So, it’s head down and back to work.

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* Pictures of 95s, like Caro Babbo, with three individual lights (windows) and only hull color above the rub rail look good to me. I generally don’t redo a designer’s work, but the case of the Maxi 95, the livery was terrible and something the designer did to overcome an aesthetic problem. While recently built boats of a comparable size tower above us, when Caro Babbo was built in 1975, her hull seemed impossibly tall: the proportions just looked awful. To hide the very high (to 1970s eyes) shear line, the hull above the rub line was painted black.

Over time, Swedish boats, notably Hallberg-Rassy, started painting the hull above the rub rail a light blue, sometimes entirely, and sometimes a graphic, as Caro Babbo did. A boat with that livery came to denote a Swedish boat.

As we prepped the boat for painting we passed through all sorts of colors of blue paint, eventually hitting the original black – we only sanded enough for prep and did not sand the hull down to gelcoat.

Two coats of primer and two color coats and we’re ready to go.

† We’re leaving as late as we are to be after hurricane season. Generally, hurricanes do not travel as far north as Hawaii and a summer crossing is typical, but global climatic change seems to be changing that.

‡ I must get the selfish satisfaction of listing some of the many small tasks accomplished:

• Replacing the LED bulbs in the galley fixture with an LED strip – this is an original fixture.
• Replacing the broken transmission drip stick – cheap, though attractive design.
• Refinished the cockpit table.
• Ordered replacement compass, under warranty, for the pudgy – Dennis at Ritchie threw in replacement bulbs for our cockpit compass for free.
• Dragged the pudgy onto the dock and inspected everything: no mold on the sail and all looks good.
• Spent 45 minutes on the phone with David Hulberg, Portland Pudgy designer and company owner and founder. He gave me a great tutorial on using the pudgy as a life raft, and told me the really fancy fender that came with the pudgy, that I left in PT because it was so pretty, was actually a boarding ladder!!
• Fitted the reefing winch.
• Built and installed a new mainsail halyard.
• Removed the genoa track on the deck, bought all the parts to replace it, but have not done so.
• Installed a new stern light (see above).
• Repaired the port anchor locked hatch.
• Removed the windows, built templates and had Charlie at Clear Cut Plastics fabricate them for me – I have eaten so much of Charlie’s time getting advice that having him fabricate them for me is a way of paying Charlie back.
• Learned a proper knot for shock cord and installed a shock cord to keep the extra foresail pennant from falling into the bottom of the locker.
• Switch the new jib halyard with the old one, and put an eye splice into the new one to take a spool-style shackle, which I am eager to try out.
• Replaced the old pelican clips on the Starboard cockpit life lines. The old ones were worn out and implemented with wraps of thin polyester line. I’ve used proper length stainless steel shackles instead.
• Replaced the mainsheet tackle, which was just wearing out. I used Harken’s lower-end tackle that came with Caro Babbo as part of an arrangement to carry an inflatable dinghy on the transom.
• Installed the replacement water bladder under the port settee. The older one had worn out. I need to replace the filler hose at some point. I did replace the feed hose to the water pumps. I also filled both bladders with the recommended vinegar solution to remove the plastic taste.
• Replaced the raw water impeller as part of routine annual maintenance.