Splashed

Well, I'm sure that any sailing friends who read the last post have been passing sleepless nights, wondering how things are going in the yard. "Poor Mike," they've been thinking. "Doing all that regular work and then finding a split in the rudder."

Fret not! We're happily back in the water. The best part of the whole experience was Graham the yard guy's reaction when I told him I was ready to launch. I had told Graham that it would take me an extra day in the yard for me to fix the rudder. He's worked in the yard for twelve years and is familiar with the wild underestimates of do-it-yourselfers for how long different projects take. So it was great to get the job done in a day (a long day - 0730 to 2200!) and then have Graham say "you are?" when I told him I was ready to go the next day.

Was also great to see the difference from the first time the rudder split in the sun. That was in Port Townsend after we'd just bought the boat, when I was struggling to get everything ready to launch for the delivery home to Kodiak. Seeing that split in the rudder felt like the end of the world, it looked like a problem that could spell doom for the whole sailing enterprise. That time I had the yard fix it. This time I had all the supplies for the job on the boat, and knew what to do, so I just did it myself.

Here's me, feeling triumphant just before the re-launch:

Check out the paint job. Eight liters of bottom paint was always more than enough in the States, but Australian bottom paint doesn't go as far. So I scrounged some blue paint for the keel and black paint for the rudder repair:

We're in our holiday rental for another week so I can work on the interior of the boat. Alisa and Elias have met lots of moms with little kids who have been great about loaning toys to Little Salty. ("Poor little boat child," they say among themselves.) Here he is at brekky this morning with one of the loaners: