New rigging and boat party!
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Week of 9/16/13 - 9/23/13 Continuing with the boat work theme of our last post, we spent last week (9/17 - 9/20) at Svendsen’s boat yard in Alameda where we had our standing rigging replaced. |
Standing rigging consists of several stainless steel cables that hold up the mast - it is very important because if your rigging fails, you might lose your mast! Our rigging was really old and not safe for open ocean cruising, which was why we decided to invest in brand new, good quality cables.
Photo caption: Our boat being de-masted at Svendsen's so new rigging could be installed.
While Svendsen’s was replacing our rigging, we asked if they could also install a used roller furler we purchased a couple months ago. We were very proud of this purchase because new roller furlers run a couple thousand dollars and we bought this one from the Napa Valley boat yard for a fraction of that price. Unfortunately, here we learned another lesson about boats: sometimes trying to save money with used gear isn’t a good idea. Svendsen’s told us the roller furler we purchased was too flimsy for bluewater cruising and if we didn’t want the forestay to snap (the name of the rigging cable that runs from the bow of the boat to the top of the mast and where the furler is attached), we should invest in a Harken furler made for bluewater. This was not in our planned budget, but we decided we needed a good furler we could depend on for safety, so we went ahead and reluctantly handed over our money. Before we left the boatyard, we also had Svendsen’s make us some new lifelines (cables that run along the outer edge of the boat), so now we are poorer, but our boat is a lot safer than it was a week ago!
We returned to our slip at the Emery Cove Yacht Harbor Saturday morning and spent the rest of the day madly cleaning the boat (which was a huge job, see pic). You see, a couple months ago, we had chosen this Sunday for our bon voyage party, thinking we would be pretty much finished with the boat work by now and just provisioning for our cruise. Another boat lesson, which we have to continually re-learn: boat work ALWAYS takes longer than you think it will! We wouldn’t have a boom or any sails up for Sunday’s party, but at least we could have a clean boat and show off our shiny new rigging and roller furler. By Sunday at 2pm, the boat was looking pretty darn good (unfortunately we forgot to take pics of the boat when cleaned up, stay tuned for future blogs!) and for the first time in a long time, we got to enjoy our boat with our friends! It was a great time, and we were reminded how lucky we are to have such an amazing community of supportive friends.
Photo caption: Me, super excited about trying to tackle the mess in our boat. Because we are always working on different projects, tools, paint, filler, etc.take up most of our living space. We'll get some pics of our nice, clean cabin soon!
Our planned departure date is October 10th, so we still have a couple weeks left to finish preparing our boat. On our list to complete before we depart is: re-attach our boom and install our new mainsail, configure a reefing system for the new mainsail, find and install a jib sail, mount our used Aries windvane (we are currently getting extra parts made to do this), install our used Ham radio, get our Technician’s and General Class Ham radio licenses so we can actually use our radio, re-do the electrical wiring on our boat, invest and install an alternative power source (likely solar panels), and install new marine batteries. There are probably a few other things, but I think that’s a long enough list for now! We definitely have our work cut out for us!