The Dog Days of Boatyard Delays

Don’t they say that good things come to those who wait?  Well hopefully we’ll get to cash in on that sometime as we continue to wait to be hauled out to have some work done on Adagio’s bottom.

Adagio has been side tied next to the pens that the Driscoll Mission Bay boat yard uses to haul and launch boats for almost two weeks.  Two weeks of delays that we really can’t afford given the large list of preparation tasks still to be accomplished before we cast off sometime in January of 2016.

In the meantime, I have been able to accomplish a few things while we’ve been waiting.

• Replaced the fuel pump that I use to prime the fuel system after changing the spin-on fuel filter on our Yanmar 4JH5E four cylinder diesel engine.  The old one failed for some reason and I had only used it three or four times.
• Wired the new cockpit speakers so we have music in the cockpit again woot woot.
• Cut the hole in the foredeck where our new windlass will be mounted.  Determined that we need to make a base for it to raise it up off the deck enough to keep the chain from jumping off the gypsy.
• Had the backing plate for the new windlass modified.
• Removed all of the old auto pilot hardware, electronics and wiring.
• Re-connected the power to our chart plotter that I inadvertently disconnected while removing the old auto pilot wiring.
• Researched interfacing AIS data to our chartplotter to warn us of approaching ships.  Wouldn’t want to be run down by one of those mammoth container ships.
• Daily keeping the yard grime off of our newly painted decks.

So I have been able to keep myself busy waiting for the eventual haul out of the boat.  Also keeping up with my paying work by utilizing the free WiFi at the local Starbucks.

Why the haul out you say?

Well during the recent previous haul out to paint the topsides (area of the hull above the waterline) we found out that we have a minor blister problem.  Blisters occur when sea water is able to permeate the outer layer of fiberglass and as a result draw in more water until a blister forms on the hull.  These needed attention and we opted for the more permanent (aka more expensive) long term fix and that is why we are in Mission Bay waiting to be hauled out.  This more permanent fix involves peeling the outer layer of fiberglass (about 1/8 inch) off of the entire hull and then re-glassing the hull with new fiberglass using a vinylester resin instead of the original polyester resin.  Probably more than you wanted to know but there it is.

I’d tell the story of what has been causing the enormous delay but I’m sure your attention span has already been stretched enough with this dry post about yard woes.  The good news is that it looks as though our waiting will come to an end tomorrow and the boat will finally be hauled out so the work can begin.

I’ll post a list of the tasks we hope to finish before we take off another time and update it as we complete each one.  In case you’re really interested in that kind of thing.  Probably more for my benefit in the future looking back on all we went through to get ready for this adventure.

Till next time.

Captain Mike.