April 1: Cleaning's Over. Time for Chores

On this third day of work, I finally got to start making repais and improvements. Here's the list:

• Remove the old depth sounder. Velvet Elvis had come to us with a depth/speed gizmo attached to the transom. The speed wheel never worked from back there, but the depth sounder did for a while. Anyway, it hadn't been used in a long time. It's job was just to sit in the back, grow algae, and add drag to the motion from the water. I got back there in a kayak and finally removed the darned thing.
• Pop top slide. Velvet Elvis has a pop top, which allows the roof over the cabin to be lifted. It's a nice feature that opens up a lot more of the boat for people to stand in and still be part of the action. The front of the pop top slides up and down the mast. I lubricated the mast and replaced the ring that allows it to slide up and down.
• Install solar things. I have solar panels that are supposed to keep the batteries charged. I haven't been trusting that the panels aren't allowing voltage to esacpe out of them, or that they haven't been overcharging the batteries when the sun is intense. I installed a little component that is supposed to prevent both scenarios.
• Lazarette hatch. I had to tighten the bolts that keep the lazarette attached to its hinges.
• The head. I needed to fix the head. I have a full installed head, and it has been having trouble pumping the lake water into the bowl. I took enough pieces apart to determine that the water can flow freely to the pump, but isn't making it from the pump to the bowl. I replaced a gasket that is supposed to control the flow, but it didn't fix the problem. Looks like I have to replace the whole pump assembly.
• Tighten screws in companionway hatch.
• Disconnect the yellow stereo wire. This is the one that keeps some charge for remembering the time and the preset. I suspect it as another cause of some of my battery charging problems.
• Tighten the screws on the pads for the pop top.
• Replace whisker pole shackle on genoa. The old one had gotten a bit rusty.
• Re-glue the coaming on the door to the head.
• Remove holders for anchor on the bow. The anchor looks kind of cool up there, but we've found it to be much more useful to have it stored under a seat in the cabin.
• Tighen screws in latches for the forward hatches.

This photo from sailing the next day shows the new kayak rig. (Well, not really, but it's the only photo I have.) The helmsman is my nephew Sam, and yes, he is old enough to be drinking that beer. This is Louisiana, after all.
• Build rig for towing two kayaks. This is how I finished up my day, and it was by far the most fun project. I cut piece of line to tie the two kayaks side by side, with lines connecting bow to bow and stern to stern. I also connected each bow to a small bumper just forward of center for the kayaks and both sterns to a bumper just aft of center. Then, the two bumpers are also connected. One bumper is also connected to the seat of each kayak seat.All of the lines that are supposed to attach to the aft or stern of a kayak are connected to caribiners, for easy connect/disconnect. It is easy enough to hook everything back together from the deck of the sailboat without getting wet.
  
  The forward part of both kayaks connect to a swivel connector, which gets connected to the sailboat with a single line. This proved incredibly effective for towing (with one caveat, which will be described later). Both kayaks move and handle similarly to a single dingy being towed.
• Re-reoute genoa furling line. Somewhere along the line, it had gotten moved to a cleat where it didn't belong.

I was pretty pleased to have gotten this much done in one day. It's been a while since I was that productive at anything.

I haven't mentioned that my sleep pattern over these days had pretty much reverted to Joe average pioneer, circa 1874. Due to first light and puppy urges, I was up at around 5:30.

Due to lack of cable television and more fatigue than I'm used to, I was asleep by 9:00 every night. Sometimes earlier.