April 4 - 14 — Slow Progress and Hidden Hand Has Already Been Launched

 Yes, my friend David’s boat, bring one of the last to be hauled out last fall, was located rather near the water, thus blocking in other boats including ILENE, that were hauled earlier in the fall. David faced a fine or penalty if he blocked another boat on or after April 11. He got his boat ready and she was launched on time, on the tenth, but ran into trouble, fortunately no injury, because the Huguenot forced him out at New Rochelle before his own club was ready to help him get in from his mooring at the City Island end. Huguenot has always forced people out before the rest of the sailing world’s season has begun. In my early years with them, the deadline was before many insurance companies began “in water” coverage. And I have never understood the artificial deadline pressure so imposed.

I have not prepped ILENE so quickly but she is blocked in by many other boats and is ready to be painted and polished by the professional contractor who will get the job done on time.

Six days at the boat of eleven days in this period, about 4.5 hours per day.

Winter covers, poles and accessories are in my locker, under the sails which get removed from them first.

Stanchions and lifelines inserted and locked in. The reason I had so much trouble bolting in one of the stanchions last spring was that despite what I had thought was careful labeling of each of the six stanchions with bits of masking tape, I got two of them mixed up with the hole for the securing bolt through one socket base misaligned with the hole in the stanchion in it.All went smoothly this year once this got straightened out.

Most running rigging restored to summer position. I got help from Samuel hauling me 3/4 way up the mast in the bosn’s chair to reinsert the port stack pack halyard  that had come loose and blew down during the winter. Sam also helped with reinstalling the cabin ceiling panels in the salon. These were two tasks that I could not have done alone unless I had at least three hands. He also helped me by controlling a line around my waist and run to a winch while I stood on the edge or the transom to reinstall the two antennae and the blocks to haul the dinghy back up there. These transom tasks were not impossible to do alone, only unsafe. Freed of the need to use one hand to hold myself on and prevent falling 20 feet to the ground below, I could use both of my hand for the work, which was done easily and quickly. Thanks, Samuel, you were also a better companion than my radio!

Final coat of poly in the galley; it will look good once the tinker toy parts are all in their proper places, which can be done after launching.

I reinserted, physically and electrically, the five pieces of the Autopilot after their return from Florida. For two of the five the  wires simply get plugged back in. For each of the other three parts, I had been required to cut the electrical wire connecting it to the other parts, to remove it from the boat. Rewiring was when the frustration set in. I could not crimp on the butt connectors with the tool that I have been using successfully for that purpose for decades:

My problem was that each wire contained five plastic covered thin wires  (they call them “high gauge” wires for some perverse reason) in close proximity to each other, I could not get the crimping part of the tool, the part between the pivot point and the red handles, into place between the separate wires because it was too wide and I did not have the grip strength, from the awkward position I was lying in to grip the handles strongly enough to push the bump part of the crimper  through the plastic cover to crush the inner metal tube onto the wire firmly enough to prevent the wire from slipping out of the butt connector.  What to do? Or as the Psalmist wrote: “from whence shall come my salvation?”  Dean, my ever helpful “professor”, who has helped me from the first day me met in the Intercoastal Waterway off Beaufort, South Carolina in the spring if 2012, was only a phone call away, on his boat, “Autumn Borne” in Vero Beach, Florida, where he was about three weeks before commencing his migration north. He said I should get myself a Klein brand single-purpose crimper tool for about $30. He sent me a picture of his, with his boat’s initials marked on it:

The crimping vise is small enough to get in between the separate wires to do the work, and the tool is nine inches long, allowing lots of pressure to squeeze the butt and secure the wires. I bought the Klein tool and set to work. Another problem was that ILENE’s manufacturer had not left an extra turn of wire so the two ends barely met. This was fixed by connecting about three inches of spare white wire between the two ends. The next picture shows to assembly, before sealing with plastic, at the most accessible of the three, the electro-compass, just below the cabin sole. Five red butt connectors are toward the left and two connector blocks are to the right. The green wire is easiest to see, starting from the compass wire side, through its butt connector and white extender, to the topmost white block and then to to end of the wire at the bottom leading aft the the computer. It is all folded, wrapped in a sheet of plastic,  its seams sealed with electrical tape and the bundle secured by a plastic wire fastener screwed to the wood at the lower left.

Two of the five parts attach physically to parts of the rudder so the work had to be done in the cramped dark uncomfortable space below the cockpit, aided by a strong task light and flash light. For one of them I had to disconnect the other end from the rudder and in so doing, being a klutz, I dropped one of the two small machine bolts which had been in place since 1999. Fifteen minutes of searching with a strong work light proved fruitless so a trip with the remaining bolt to Buddy’s Hardware Store on City Island was required to buy a box of five replacements. And anxiety builds over whether the auto pilot will work at all, and if so, properly, after all this investment of time and money.

I mixed up four tiny batches of two part epoxy and “micro bubble” dust into a paste to apply in layers to fill the nick in the trailing edge of the keel and the four holes I drilled into the rudder to let out potential water and sanded them all smooth to be ready for bottom paint.

And the final task accomplished so far was sanding bare, wiping with Acetone, applying one coat of primer and three coats of  $pecial expen$ive Italian Velex bottom paint to the shaft and prop. 

David Detailer’s crew will scrape and paint her bottom and clean her freeboard next week. All I have to do is  lubricate her prop and apply new zincs. 

Spring was short, with summery near ninety degree days.