Splash!! Heading North Take Two!

April 14,2012 - Finally all of our parts (prop,shaft,rudder,rudder bracket) came back this past week and the mechanics went to work promptly to reinstall all. The shaft turned out to be fine but the prop needed to be rebalanced,. The rudder, on the other hand, received the most damage. The rudder post was cracked and the bracket that connects it to the hydraulic system was cracked. The specialty shop had to fabricate a new post and bracket. All of that is what came back.

New Cutlass Bearing

 Installing the Shaft

Installing the Propeller

Installed the rudder with it's new Rudder Post

Coating the Rudder and Propeller with Prop Speed

Since we were up in the air anyway we decided to have the bottom of the boat repainted since it had not been done in almost 2 years. When it came out of the water it was in perfect shape with only a few barnacles on the bottom where we had run aground and scraped the paint off.

Summer Wind Heading Back to the Water

We were launched on Friday April 13th! Hey we're not superstitious..  With the service manager and mechanic on board we took the Summer Wind out for a sea trial. A few adjustments were made while underway and then back to the dock.
Now all we had to do was close up our home, return the rental car and put a lot of stuff away.
About 3:00 o'clock we left the marina and started heading north. Watching the waters very closely so not to ruin the expensive job just finished. Mother nature was not cooperating and we were not very far from the marina when the sky became black and the wind started to howl. we did get the fringe rains from a huge storm that we found out later on the news produced "water spouts" farther south. We dropped the hook in the north part of Lake Worth and had a good nights rest even though the winds were blowing all night.

It is now Saturday and we made it to a beautiful little anchorage in Ft. Pierce,FL. The winds have been 15 to 20 knots all day from behind us and I (Dick) had to hand steer all day because the auto pilot finds it difficult to keep us straight in wave conditions from behind.
Every thing is running beautifully and we are going to try and make some long days. We are missing the MTOA rendezvous but may get there the last day. That one we will be playing by ear.
Keep watching for the latest news of the Summer Wind and her crew.