Boat Stuff

We had a great time Saturday as race committee.  After we saw off the fleet we decided to try and label the wires running up the wire chase from the lower helm station up to the flybridge.  We took the wood casing off the chase and Matt stationed himself there with a flashlight and I climbed into the compartment at the front of the flybridge.  To get in there, I had to crawl through a not very big opening and of course I ended up having to crawl in and out of it a few times over the course of the ~two hours we worked on this so I ended up bruised, scrapped up and a little sore.  Wow, just like sailing! 

We managed to get maybe ~75% of the wires labeled but that is just the ones that lead to the flybridge, there are other wires in the chase that lead off in other directions so that will be a project for another day. 

Towards the end of the project (as dictated by the fact that the fleet of racers was rounding the last mark and heading towards us so we needed to resume our race committee duties) Matt said "I think we are getting boarded."  I am in a kind of confined space I cannot quickly get out of so I did the "who, what, where".  He said a fairly official looking zodiac was headed our way but he could not tell if they were USCG or what.  So I managed to extricate myself in time to actually see them and hear the conversation.  Turns out they were Fish and Game and they thought we were out fishing.  Since we weren't, they weren't interested so I had climbed out for nothing.  Oh well, back in the hole.

Somewhere over the course of the weekend we realized the water in our bilge was coming from our starboard shaft packing.  Matt borrowed some wrenches and some manpower and tried to adjust it last night to no avail.  He and the other guy could not even BUDGE the thing.  So the mechanic is supposed to come today or tomorrow and fix it.  Estimated cost is $150. I am not sure if he is going to adjust what we have our replace the packing but hopefully we will get the drip under control.  We did at least figure out that our float switch works and we identified which of the three "Bilge pump" switches on our three electrical panels does what!!  Two of the three have to be on to override the automatic pump.  We still have not figured out why five things have two switches that both have to be on--and these two panels are both at the lower helm.  Ah the mystery and allure of boats!

We had such a good time on our Redwood City trip the other day that we are trying to think of somewhere to go this weekend.  We were thinking Redwood City again, South Beach (in San Francisco) or Encinal (in Alameda).  We decided it was too soon to go back to Redwood City, South Beach has potential to be nuts due to its proximity to the Giants ballpark and unfortunately there is a cruise in at Encinal.  We are thinking of going to Oakland Yacht Club, which is next door to Encinal and having some sort of Jimmy Buffet party with live audio from his concert.  Sounds pretty cool!  We'll see what shakes out!