As with all good fairytales, the hero must, by design, get through an evil forest, lay waste to a few dragons, and fight some bad guys before he can claim his "happily ever after"... We souls aboard South Trail are wading through our own ying/yang bog of hurdles necessary to get our boat out of the harbor and onto our own "fair winds and following seas" ever after...
Our Robertson Autopilot, which Craig has painstakingly installed, has a serious glitch. It will hold a compass course perfectly for about 3 minutes, and then just stop steering the boat. We can then adjust course +/- one degree and it "wakes up" and starts steering again... for three minutes. It's a sailor's version of "Groundhog Day"... Not a great scenario for the relaxing cruise we have been planning! Craig is 99% sure it is the control head computer which needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, we have not been able to locate a used one to fit our unit in all our usual favorite internet and land based spots. Our other option is to purchase a whole new "brain" for our quadrant linear drive, which by virtue of it's cost, would shorten our cruise. Either way, we have to have reliable self-steering while crusing. Our previous Mexican cruise '04-'05 we completed the Baja Bash from Acapulco to Long Beach with no self-steering autohelm. That was 4 hours on and 4 hours off watch schedule with one of us always at the helm steering 1800+ nautical miles. I never knew it was possible to actually miss someone's company on a 30 foot boat. Although that was a great sailing experience with valuable lessons learned, it is not a scenario Craig and I will willingly repeat!
Meanwhile, our new ICOM 718 Ham Radio has been successfully installed (the old Kenwood we got turned out to be a dud unfortunately) and along with our new ICOM antenna tuner, we have been listening to all sorts of radio traffic from all over the world. It is pretty cool, I must admit. It does inspire one to study for the Ham test. Craig is definately going to pass. Eva?... Jury is still out.
Craig also finished putting together our new fuel transfer and polish system which is very cool. On our last cruise aboard our old Cal 2/29 Tigertail Street we had some real issues in rough seas with our engine cutting out due to lack of diesel flow in half empty tanks. Craig designed a pretty genius system on our Newport 41 by installing a 12 gallon day tank which is the only feed to our engine. It sits in our salon settee, amidships and just port of our centerline which all but eliminates the tank sloshing about. Our two original diesel tanks each feed to a Racor filter which polishes the fuel prior to being pumped to the day tank. The day tank feeds the engine after it goes through a second Racor filter mounted next to our Universal 5432 engine. The fuel transfer and polisher sits in our "garage" aft of our companionway and also has a spare hose to allow polish and transfer to the day tank from jerry jugs or fuel bladders.
Eva has been attempting to tame the storage beast. Storage has grown exponentially over the last few years, and with the addition of
Ventura Boat Doctor projects overlapping eachother, we have managed to create quite the disorganized mess. The boat itself has been cleared of all extraneous extras (books, pillows, cushions, etc) in order to make our system's installs easier. All of that is in storage too! It is a big project and one that must be accomplished before we depart.
Dover is our "One Step Forward" success story this blog. He has turned a corner in recent days, and is now enjoying being a social doggie with his previous dock dog nemesis'. He actually played and frolicked on the beach with Jenga, a small white dog, which we have lovingly refered to for the last year as "the other, other white meat". After a year of lighting-up at poor Jenga and her master, Vicki, when they walked past our boat, Dover met her on the beach sans leashes and acted the perfect gentleman. They played and frolicked in the sand. It was a wonderful moment!
