Season Ending

Well, the sailing season on the lakes is coming to an end. The marina will pull all the boats out this month. Mine is scheduled for the week of the 16th. That means two more weekends. I need to remove lots of things from the boat before it happens.

The outside service people did some more wokr on the boat today. I have this hope that eventually, I will be able to trust the key systems on the boat and go sailing without raising my stress levels. Since I bought the thing to try to lower stress, that seems desirable somehow. This time, they replaced the shifter cable, the engine battery, and the bilge pump. The last was necessary because I went up there last weekend only to discover that the lake had filled the bilge and was about to hit the cabin sole. Not good. Now at least I can be reasonably sure it won't sink while I'm back home working. The shifter cable will make it possible to use the engine, which is helpful (read: essential) in getting in and out of the marina. The engine battery was old and couldn't hold a charge very well.

As far as I can tell there are really only two other problems that I need to fix to make her fully functional. First, is the fact that the water tank doesn't actually hold any water. The problem there is that I can't figure out how to actually get into the compartment to work on it. Anyone over about nine years old is too big. The second problem is that there is no electricity getting up the mast, which means that none of the lights there work. No night sailing without them.

Minor problems include getting the jib up higher when I first set it in the Spring, and figuring out how to rig the jib sheets. In part that second one is so that I don't actually lose a finger when trimming them.

Next thing, though, is to find out what I really need to do to get her ready for winter. I thought I had a canvas cover, but I can't seem to find it. I do want to cover it. The two things that I want to find out are 1. how to prepare the engine and fuel tank and 2. what to do about the batteries.

In the meantime the forecast for this weekend is really good. Perhaps a little cool; perhaps not quite enough wind to be exciting, but all-in-all great sailing weather, so I hope to take advantage. Might be the last time this season.