First sail of the season

Happy Memorial Day!  Well, that was yesterday, but it was a good one.  The weather could not have been more perfect yesterday. 12-15 knot winds for most of the day blowing warm, moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico.  The sun was shining, and the air was hot.  As soon as work was over I rushed to the Marina and hopped aboard Aequitas to change clothes.  In the slip right next to mine there is a nice couple (and their dog) that live aboard an O'Day 30 on the weekends.  She looks to be a pretty nice vessel.  I met them last week and they said I was welcome to join them anytime I wanted to go out on the water.  I at first thought it was just a nice gesture, but as I was walking down the dock one of them met me and asked where I was all day.  Apparently they had gone out for a sail and the fog had fallen on them with a vengeance and they could have used an extra hand to get back into the harbor.  I was surprised that she even remembered my name (because I must confess that I cannot remember hers for the life of me). 
My friend, Sarah, was in town for the weekend; so we got together to go sailing.  Luckily the Sea Scout's Flying Junior sailboats (14' college racing dinghies) were rigged and ready to go.  We grabbed the essentials: life jackets, sails, rudder, tiller, paddle; out of the locker and got going as quickly as possible.  We were out on the water for about 2 hours.....Amazing!  It almost surprises me every time when I remember how in love with sailing I am.  It's nice to feel like there is something in this life that I was born to do.  The raw power of the wind being harnessed by contoured slabs of fabric.  It's rewarding to be able to utilize and in some ways control two of earth's most powerful elements: wind and water.

I, for the most part, stayed dry while Sarah got a good deal of spray as we pounded over 1-2 foot waves.  I'll have to take more pictures next time so you can all see what Sheboygan looks like from outside of the harbor.  Until then, thanks for reading.  Feel free to leave comments below, or ask questions.  Thanks!

Homeless

Yesterday was my birthday!  It was pretty uneventful to begin with.  I worked all day (literally).  The only thing to break up the monotony was going out to Culver's with a friend for lunch.  If you've never been to Culver's I highly recommend it.  A better brand of beef truly does make a butter-burger better.  I worked from 8:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night.  We close at 8:00, but I had some last minute customers that bought a car.  Oh well, money is good right?  After I updated my Facebook account and replied to most of the birthday wishes I started to head home.  On the way I suddenly grew hungry.  The problem with Sheboygan is that there's nowhere to go at 11:00 at night for food except Perkins.  I didn't want to go to the restaurant alone and feel lame so I decided to just turn in for the night.  As I was almost to the marina I got a text from my friend Jessica, she was with another friend.....at Perkins.  So in the end I did get some more birthday fun, and I got to eat inordinate amounts of food.  That's a good day in my book.
As I got home to Aequitas I noticed that there was no longer any water dripping into the bilge; small victories.  Thursday I will be moving the rest of my belongings out of my apartment so I can fully move onto the boat.  I wonder if I'll get in trouble for being technically homeless.  Does living on a boat count as homelessness?  What if I have my Mom's house as my mailing address.  Soon the only bills I will have are my cell phone and the insurance for the car I sold to my sister and brother in-law.  Hopefully this means that I will be able to save quickly for my trip to California this summer, and to Europe next summer.
Just as a backup plan I began searching for flight prices to head to all the places I want to visit next summer.  Oddly enough if I did it as a multi-stop flight and spent about a week in each country it would only be just over $1,000 for the whole trip.  That's stopping in Ireland, England, Spain, and Florida.  For that price I may as well do that this year.  Obviously that doesn't cover food and lodging.  The main thing I want to experience though is cruising on my own boat and pulling into a strange port and seeing everything from that perspective.  Then I can explore every cove and inlet along the way, stop at any beach that intrigues me, and carry my living place with me like a snail's shell. 

Somethings don't measure up

Have you ever had that feeling where you're sure something won't quite go the way you want it to?  I had this nagging doubt at the back of my mind that something would go wrong stepping the mast, but I have gotten so used to having nagging doubts about everything on my boat that I figured this would work out just as well as everything else had.  Technically I'm still ahead of schedule, but still not sailing.  I brought my siblings down with me to the marina on Wednesday to try and get the mast up.  I was able to get the rig straightened out, and all the stays in order.  The wind got too strong for me to attempt it with such a young crew on hand.  One thing that I did learn from this exercise though is that my mast has one more shroud per side than my boat has chain plates for.  Basically: 3 wires per side to hold the mast up, but only 2 spots for them to attach to.  After consulting the cruiser's forum I decided I could throw the mast up and hope for the best.
I awoke early in the morning to thick fog coating the harbor.  I called up some friends to help raise the mast, and we commenced aroung 10:00.  I was worried more that I wouldn't be able to get out sailing because of the fog than that I might not get the mast up at all.  We tried brute force about 3 times before we gave up and went to get lunch.  I remembered how we had raised the mast on another boat last year, so I rigged up the boom to act as a fulcrum and used all of my new halyards and sheets as hoisting rigging.  It was tough work, I had two guys hauling back on the winches, one girl steadying the boom and making sure the mast was square on the mast step, and I was lifting the thing as high as I could over my head while standing on the dock.  The infernal aluminum stick is a lot heavier than you'd think, and one of the spreaders clonked me in the head pretty good.  After some time a neighbor came to help after he and his wife had a little trouble docking their sloop.  Spencer, my little brother, went to help them tie off, and in return they hopped in on the mast project and lent us the extra manpower we needed to get it done.  After a lot of groaning, twisting, leaning, and freaking out the mast slid over the step squarely with a resounding clunk!  It was only after it got all the way in the vertical position that the wind started to play havoc with us.  A six foot tall person trying to steady a 25 foot long mast on a swaying boat is no easy feat.  My friend, Gavin, was instructed to run around and attach the turnbuckles as soon as possible so we could be relieved of our stabilizing duty; it was then that we realized (much to my dismay) that the shrouds were about 16" too short.  Somehow I expected that it wouldn't work out, but I was more worried that they would be too long, not too short.  I was not as depressed as I could have been.  We gathered our thoughts and slowly dropped the mast back down to the deck.  I was glad that during the last few seconds when it popped loose and everyone lost control that it didn't go through any one's kneecaps. 
I thought about my options.  Maybe I could hack off the bottom of the mast, but then the fore stay and back stay would be too long, and the jib wouldn't fit.  I could buy all new shrouds, but that costs money.  Maybe I'll just use some extenders or some chain to fill in the gap.  I need to have it work perfectly before I attempt it again.  Sadly I won't have any more money untill June.  I just can't wait to get out sailing.  The weather was so perfect. 
I did get to walk around the beautiful south pier district of Sheboygan and check out the surf shop.  My friend, Stephanie, is back from her mission to Arizona, so we spent all day catching up on life.  It was nice to relax by the pool, grill some burgers, and retire watching Toy Story 3.

Prep for maiden voyage

Things keep showing up in the mail for Aequitas.  It's probably good that I stagger my purchases so I don't notice how much I've spent on sheets, halyards, a VHF radio, flares, life jackets, fenders, dorade vents, sails, and all that nice stuff. 
Today I was off of work for a few hours so after getting a much needed hair cut I went with my family down to try and raise the mast.  We got the stays in order and it looks about ready to go up, but with the wind and the lack of manpower I decided to wait until tomorrow.  I'm really hoping it all goes smoothly.
I feel like I've slowly been getting ill, probably due to the cold dampness in the boat.  I need to go through and bleach everything to eliminate any mold or mildew.  The galley is gradually getting stocked with bananas, apples, pop-tarts, bottles of water.  If all goes well tomorrow I might not come back.... If all goes wrong I might not have the choice of coming back. 
Keep your fingers crossed, and keep reading.  Thanks!

Living aboard

I have officially slept aboard the boat every night this week.  For some reason it's a lot warmer in the harbor than it was up on land.  It's very peaceful to get rocked to sleep at night by the little waves in the marina.  For some reason I can't explain the boat starts tugging at her lines a lot each morning around 5:30.  Maybe it's just cause I stir around in my sleep and that moves the whole hull, or maybe there's a strange current under the boat.  Not quite sure about that. 
One annoying thing that is causing me a little distress is the constant drip coming from the through hull port under the sink in the galley.  It's not much, but over the 12-13 hours I'm gone each day I get about a half gallon of water in the bilge.  I would be much more comfortable if it was bone dry each day.  I keep thinking she's gonna sink because I didn't patch her well enough.  There could be water slowly seeping into the keel and I wouldn't know.  I'm sure she'll be fine.  I guess it's not bad for being a 40 year old boat that hasn't been in the water in at least 5 years.
I got paid yesterday and immediately ordered sails and a turnbuckle for the rig.  I still won't know if it all fits until I try to put the mast up; I can't wait to go sailing though.  I think my first sail of the year will be my first sail ever on this boat.  It's going to be tricky without an engine, but if the wind is favorable then I won't hesitate. 
I had some friends stop by last night to visit.  Until I get a battery on board I'm going to be living by candle light.  I think tomorrow will be my first self-sufficient day at the marina.  I'll bring some food down for breakfast, and some toiletries so I can just shower up at the Harbor Center. 
And as for the name of my vessel.  Although I haven't painted the transom yet, I have settled on a name (it's on the insurance and in the marina's records).  And from hence forth she shall be known as:  Aequitas.   It is Latin for Justice.  I figured it looked cool, and anybody that has ever seen "Boondock Saints" will get it.

She floats!

After much freaking out and anxiety my boat is finally tied up to her dock, floating happily in the harbor.  I had my brother, Spencer, camp out with me on the boat for the last night on land.  We got up early in the morning so I could get things squared away with the tug.  I had figured we would be able to use the Sea Scout's Boston Whaler to move into the slip; unfortunately the boat was packed into the garage, and it hadn't been serviced yet, so it was not ready to go.  I went and talked to some of the guys from Sail Sheboygan, or U.S. Sailing (whichever organization it was), and they agreed to help out whenever I got my boat put in. 
I moved some of the boat stands to paint more anti-fouling underneath.  I was worried that she'd tip over, so I moved them back a bit prematurely so the paint stuck to the stands.  I had a couple of friends help out with the photography and getting the mast up on the boat.  I went to good ole' Wal-Mart for my dock lines, and ordered my green fenders from Defender Marine.  I checked and double checked all of the through hull ports so no water would come gushing in.

I was so nervous the whole time.  In my mind I kept thinking of everything that could go wrong.  What if the trailer was the wrong size? What if I forgot something and it flooded? What if we couldn't get her over to her slip? What if they wanted me to pay cash (instead of using a check) for the towing?
In hindsight I should have been abit more relaxed, but it felt like a mixture of the excitement of Christmas morning, and the anxiety of heading into battle not knowing what to expect.

A cleaned off foredeck.

It was nerve racking knowing that for a bit the boat was just balancing on its keel and nothing else.  The guy from teh towing company was nice though.  I think he knew it was my first summer with my first boat.  People don't really care what you sail, just how you sail it.

All ready to go!



I was hoping that I wouldn't see a geyser of water as soon as the hull hit the water.  Also I was worried that the strap placed under the rudder was going to do permanent damage. 
The moment of truth came, and she floated right off the trailer.  It was amazing to see my little boat bobbing there along side the dock looking just as seaworthy as anything else on the water. 
Just as soon as we were in the water our friends with the motor boat showed up right alongside and got to work.  So helpful and efficient!

Then we motored over to slip #49 and tied off.  It all went so smoothly I was a bit worried.  I don't worry all the time, but things rarely go as planned in my family.
But despite all that could have gone wrong, here we are!





A hard day's night

The only way to get rid of a dream is to forget about it or chase it down till you fulfill it.  Sometimes you need to make sacrifices to chase your dreams and reach your goals; today that sacrifice takes the shape of sleep.  Since I've been working so much I really don't have any time to work on my boat during the day, so I decided I could squeeze in a few hours after work to prep for more varnishing.  Unfortunately since I didn't get done with work until 8:30 and I had to run other errands I didn't get down there until 10:00.  Once I get something in my head I stick to it till it's done: so even though it was late I got to work. 
All but the rub rails have been varnished and so I had to sand everything down with 220 grit sandpaper until it was smooth.  Luckily I didn't need to see much to do this, so I worked by touch.  I did invest in a few small tea light candles to keep the cabin lit without the need of batteries (it looked pretty cool).
After about two-and-a-half hours of sanding I was finally done and about collapsed from being so sleepy.  I haven't gotten the best sleep over the past couple of days.  I had the foresight to bring along a pillow and sleeping bag, and thus I spent my first night on my boat.  I'm planning on living on it for the summer, so no reason not to get used to it now. 
I curled up in the foreward cabin and slept the best I could manage.  It dropped a little below 40 degrees, so it wasn't too toasty, and the amount of caffeine I had consumed to fuel my night time sanding party kept my mind running at full tilt long after my body was done for the day.  Now sitting here at the computer is interesting seeing as I woke up at 5:20 am to get my brother to seminary class at the church on time. 
I did notice that the sky began to get bright around 4:00 am, so I might just wake up early to get some work done as opposed to staying up late.  It's all good though.

Photographic proof of progression

You can see the difference a little varnish makes on an old boat.

And this is only the first coat in the cockpit.  The floor still needs to be painted though.

This was after about fifteen minutes of stirring.  It was pretty tough.




Just starting to do the anti-fouling

All finished with the first coat.  She's starting to look like a proper yacht now.

After one coat of primer in the cockpit.  Hopefully she'll be ready for the 9th of May.