My boat is calling and I must go.

In less than a week Pandora will go back in the water to head to Hampton and the Salty Dawg Rally to Antigua.  I’ll admit that I am pretty excited about hanging out with what will be a capacity crowd including nearly 125 boats heading for points south.

Pandora is currently on the hard in Annapolis with a number of techs swarming over her dealing with paint issues, electrical and rigging details that need addressing.

Last weekend I headed down there for about 4 days to work on the many things that needed doing before she goes back in the water.  I am hoping that her splash date will be Monday October 24th but if weather is not looking good for the run to Hampton, I’ll have to stick with an earlier date.

One of the issues that I had to address was the instillation of the replacement for my corroded aluminum tank that sprung a leak last winter, dumping all 35 gallons of precious fuel into the bilge. I was able to save about 10 gallons but the rest went away.    I had the new tank constructed at Luther’s Welding in RI.   I have to say that they do really great work.

I picked up the new tank at their shop.  The new one looks a lot better, that’s for sure. I have now learned a lot about corrosion and what can happen when aluminum lays in the bilge.  In such a dank area salt sitting on the metal will raise hell with it over time.  The “new” leak was pretty apparent.   No wonder that it didn’t take long for all that fuel to leak out.  Nasty… The replacement tank was constructed to be about 1/8″ smaller, in each direction, than the old one, just to be sure that it would fit, and it does. 

In order to avoid another failure down the road, it was recommended that I support the new tank with some 2″ square plastic spacers bedded with 3M 5200 to keep the tank from being in direct contact with the hull and any salt that might accumulate under it.   Sadly, I neglected to purchase “fast cure” so the glue stayed wet and the spacers slipped and slid all over the place while I tried to put the tank in place.  After a few false starts, I was able to secure it and get the floor joists installed as well. I was also having difficulty with the boom gooseneck that was working the fittings loose and needed some love.  It is generally a bad thing if the boom works itself loose while underway.  They removed the boom, did some surgery, and now it’s back in place.  It was a pretty big job in spite of there being only a few new screws showing for their efforts.  Better now. I also had small but persistent leak around the deck joint for the mast.  I had no idea how they would address it but they did.  It looks pretty elegant.  So much, I hope for the SLOB, Slow Leak Over Bunk.  And under the “so simple, even a child, or Bob, can do it”, I installed two new faucets in the heads.  The old ones were pretty corroded.  I don’t expect that these will last decades but then, nothing does in the marine environment.  I am also having the underside of the hard dodger repainted as the old finish was peeling and looked terrible.  It’s turning out to be a very difficult job with some adhesion issues that have come up and I am anxious about what the bill will be like and how it will turn out.

For that matter I am DOUBLY ANXIOUS about how big the bill will be overall.  It was certainly a good plan on my part to also focus on the kitchen and guest bath so I can say to Brenda, “well, we spent a LOT on BOTH the house and boat.” I cling to the belief that this gives approach will give me at least a bit of cover.  Probably not, but I am sticking to my story.

Oh yeah, remember that nasty cold that I caught from my adorable little granddaughter?  It turns out that when I headed to Annapolis for four days of work on Pandora, well I had bronchial pneumonia.    Fortunately, I was on a heavy duty antibiotic which helped, well helped a little as I hacked my way through three days of work on Pandora.

I can tell you that sanding the bottom of Pandora, all 47′ of her while, suffering from pneumonia is no fun, but at least that’s done.  Really glad that I had a brand new full face respirator.    After sanding the entire boat, I can now see that it’s time for to get the bottom soda blasted to remove years of too much bottom paint off and begin anew.

Well, Pandora is getting closer to launching and she sure has gotten her pound of flesh, and phlegm, out of me this year.   I am beginning to think that I may be getting too old to do all of this stuff myself.

However, I am getting excited about heading to Antigua.  Lots of fun to come.

Perhaps I’ll close with this photo of Brenda.  Truer words were never put on a pillow.

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