July 9-15 -- Three Work Days and Two Sails, Including a Great One.

The work days added up to fifteen hours plus five more by the saintly Pat who knows how to do things and whose generosity toward me was beyond belief.  I was also visited by our rigger, Jeff, who installed the new radar reflector and a new VHF masthead antenna to replace this one -- which he thought had been fried by lightning --, inspected everything, and told me to buy three new halyards and new rope clutches. So his expert service fee will be the least of the expenses associated with his visit.
The primary accomplishment of most of this time (yes, a couple of hours was expended looking for misplaced things, and cleaning) was the completion of the re-installation of the new stanchions and lifelines. The most recent blogpost described how I got ILENE to the dock, sat on it and drilled out the bolt, holding the bent stanchion. Well, not quite straight or clean. The casting which is the base for the stanchion has a groove that fits atop the vertical part of the toe rail. So the hole is discontinuous, first through the part of the casting outside the toe rail and later, the part inside. And we ended with a 5/8" hole that slanted downward diagonally a bit.  What we did, Pat's idea, was fill both holes with JB Weld stick: Pat cut off a piece, I kneaded it to mix the black center with the grey outside of this two part epoxy and pushed it into place using thin plastic scrapers that Pat had brought. Then he scraped off the excess and I washed the residue off my hands with soap and water and waited an hour for it to cure. Meanwhile he set up his huge full sized drill press that he had brought from his home shop and we clamped the casting in the perfect position and drilled a hole, starting with a small bit and increasing to 7/32". Meanwhile I borrowed a 1/4" by 20 thread tapper and its handle from Buddy's, the island's hardware store. Karl, at Buddy's said it was free but I felt better giving his $3 anyway. Let's hear it for Buddy's!
But we then had to go to the boat to measure and mark the place for the 3/8" holes, one on the side of each stanchion where the threaded top of the diagonal brace screws in, and to dry fit and then, after removal and liberal application of Boat Life caulking so water will not drip down into the boat, secure attachment of the newly drilled aft stanchion base. Pat did the hard part, on the inside of the boat, feeling where he could not see to fit the bolts onto the nuts and then hold them in place with a wrench while I screwed the bolts tight from topsides. Then a lot of acetone to get the caulk off hands, tools and boat.

Next day I put it all together, except that the flat "foot" of the diagonal, bracing rod, while attached to the flat part of the toe rail, was not securely flush down to it.  I was now working alone again, thanks, Pat, and the slowness of my work gave me time to think. And the solution applied the day after that was to back some of the tread out of the new 3/8" hole at the top of the diagonal, making it "longer" so its foot met the "ground". And, following Pat's advice, I had obtained a Number 3 (big) Phillips head screwdriver bit, which I fit into the ratchet wrench and slowly pulled the foot down to the ground. DONE!

Hold on a minute pardner! Next step is to insert the new lifelines that I had paid Defenders to make up to match the length of the old ones that I had kinked in the summer of 2016 in Hyannisport. Defenders is a very reliable and responsible discount vendor of all things for boats and I have bought many things from them and will continue to do so. The lower lifeline fit, fine but the upper, inexplicably, was a bit too long!!  After the fitting at its aft end was attached to the aft stanchion and the wire\was run through the holes at the top of each other stanchion going forward, the piece has a threaded rod. So does the piece hanging from the aft end of the pulpit. By threading those two threaded rods into a turnbuckle and turning it, those ends are pulled together, stretching out the wire to the desired tightness.  Nuts on the threaded rods are then tightened against the turnbuckle's ends n to prevent it from turning and loosening. But when I had turned the turnbuckle as far as it would go -- so that the two ends of the threaded rods had met and blocked each other from being tightened further, the wire still had some small loops in it. By the next day I had figured out what to do. Using the cutting wheel of the Dremel tool (a tiny hand held electric drill which does the work slowly without pressure) I cut about 3/4" off the end of each threaded rod and then used a different bit to round off the threads at the ends of those rods. Then the test fit, and it fit, nice and tight! [Add pic of turnbuckle.]
[Preview of the next job: the lid of the refrigerator box is about 4" thick, with a top surface and a bottom one, enclosing about 3" of styrofoam like material. It really provides great insulation to keep the contents of the refrigerator cold. But the top and bottom have come unglued, hence the next job. Stay tuned!]
And of course all work and no play makes Roger a dull boy, assuming a 76 year old man can still call himself a boy.  I've seen a meme recently: picture of a boy and his mom. Boy: "When I grow up I want to be a sailor!"  Mom: "Well son, you have to chose; you can't have both."
In any event, we had five Old Salts, including Mark, of "Deuce of Hearts" and Morty, Peggy and Sarah on ILENE on Wednesday. We were underway for about 2.5 hours but didn't get very far.  Light wind continued to curse us. We did get to 3.4 knots for a few seconds but the sailing was quite unsatisfying, compensated for by the good company. Five more folks who had sailed on Ohana came over for the refreshments.
The great sail took place late on Sunday, with winds out of the north of up to ten to twelve knots but no waves, just about perfect conditions.

Lene and I and Bennett and Harriet (and Milo, contented on her lap) made it out to the American Yacht Club on Peningo Neck in Rye for dinner and then back. That club is very posh and the dinner buffet (including the "service charge" because we were not members) and tax and tip was $60 per person. But the food was truly excellent and varied. This is still a club which refuses to touch money: they mail a bill to the Harlem, which notifies us of the charge; we pay the Harlem and then our club pays them. Quaint, in the internet age and it uses four postage stamps and involves a big delay, but that is how they like to do it. A funny thing happened while we were taking the free mooring they assigned us: Bennett lost a sneaker overboard and we failed to snag it with the boat hook on several attempts until it got too close to the rocks to continue trying. And this is a club that requires collared shirts (I was lucky enough to have one aboard). So bare feet, even in the outdoor patio dining room with its magnificent view of the Sound, would not do. We borrowed a pair of sandals that that had been left at the dock house and entered, but soon the owner came in to get them. As a result, for the buffet, Bennett and I switched back and forth using my sandals to get plates from the buffet.
We left the Harlem at about three-thirty and after two hours ashore, got back onto our mooring just before the last glimmer of the sun, which had set, was replaced by the light of the near full moon. We used the small jib on the way out and with slightly lower wind, the genoa on the way back. We averaged close to seven knots and touched eight. This was one of those few days a season when we are reminded why we like to sail. Here is the sun setting with new Rochelle to the right, followed by the same, rounding Belden Point and headed for home a while later.