ON THE HARD

We were hauled out of the water last Monday and here it is 1 week later and we are still on the hard. For all you landlubbers that means the boat is no longer in the water but blocked up on land.

To the naked eye everything looked okay. After the mechanics took a closer look they found the prop was a little out of balance so they had to take it off the shaft. It hadn't been off the boat for many years and it took the mechanic all day to finally free it up. They then had to take the rudder off in order to get the shaft out. All of those parts were sent to a specialized shop with obviously sophisticated equipment to check everything out. The main shaft was okay. the prop definitely needed to be rebalanced. The rudder post on the other hand had a crack in it. So here we are , still waiting for our parts to come back.

Luckily we are quite close to our new home, so instead of having to go to a hotel we opened up the house and moved back in. We go to the boat on a daily basis and have been dutifully cleaning and waxing as much as we can. From the water line up she shines. Since we are on the hard we made the decision to have this yard paint the bottom for us. Needless to say all of this is squeezing the wallet real hard.
Unfortunately, if we don't get back in and underway by Wednesday we may miss the MTOA rendezvous which we have been scheduled to attend in Fernandina Beach, FL. It is about 320 miles from where we are. That doesn't sound very far but at 7-8 miles per hour it could take us 5 days of daylight running. It starts next Monday!!!!!  Will let you know in the next posting so stay tuned.