We do it right because we do it twice!

While it hasn’t exactly been warm, at least it hasn’t been raining on the weekends.  This gave us the chance to get down to the marina on Saturdays and Sundays over the past few weeks to tackle our list of pre-launch projects and tasks.  I’m very happy to report that with the exception of washing the boat, everything is ready to go.  It was just too chilly to talk ourselves into washing her, so we’ll have to take care of it when we motor up to the t-dock sometime over the next few weekends.

We have been busy, busy, busy.  Some of the tasks went off without a hitch – painting the boot stripe, polishing the stainless, oiling the interior wood, loading cushions and supplies onto the boat, vacuuming everything, installing the anchor bracket, spraying the mast and jib slots, changing the fuel filter/water separator.  Other tasks, not so much.

Painting the bottom wasn’t too bad, although poor Jeff’s back was acting up so he cheered me on while I tackled it.  Hmmm.  Last year I also had to paint the bottom because he was working and it was the only good weather day we had.  I’m sensing a trend here.

Painting the bottom of the dinghy didn’t go quite as well because it was so darn windy that day.  It has a Jackson Pollock look to it now, officially making it the ugliest dinghy on Fishers Island Sound.  At least no one will want to steal it.

Installing the battery is always a treat.  It’s heavy and in an awkward space.  Getting the cover on and strapped down involves mostly going by “feel” – it’s basically a two-person job.  After wrestling with the battery, and then wrestling some more with the rubber caps where the alternator cable connects to it, we gave each other a high five.  Then we saw that the yard guys had threaded the alternator cable through the swim ladder.  Doh!

Getting the swim ladder out involved quite a bit of grunting and not a small amount of swearing.  Picture trying to make a 90 degree turn in a space that seems like it’s only barely bigger than the ladder itself.  We decided to give it a new home in the v-berth so as not to go through that again.

Once the battery was hooked up we had to figure out why none of the lights were working (we had an open circuit because we hadn’t finished wiring the computer fan for the Nature’s Head), and then we had to reverse the wiring on the light that had previously been used to run the computer fan for the Nature’s Head because we got it backwards on our first try.  Sigh.  We do it right because we do it twice.

We also filled the water tank, dumped in some Aqua Fresh, and started pumping the water out of the tank and pouring it in the sink.  That’s when we discovered the leak in the sink drain hose that we had installed after replacing the seacock.  There was a beat-up plastic washer that was preventing Jeff from threading the hose onto the drain, so we had decided to leave it off.  Oops.  Guess that wasn’t such a great idea.

One trip to Tru-Value Hardware and $1.37 later, we were back in business.  Hey, it wouldn’t be a weekend working on the boat without at least one extra trip to Home Depot, West Marine, Defender, or Tru-Value.

All of this was accomplished over several weekends, but now it’s reward time.  It’s been a long, cold winter (and spring), but when we see Pegu Club this weekend, she’ll be in the water!