A Season's End, A Cruiser's Beginning

Good evening peoples of the internet! We've been working pretty hard to get out of here in the appropriate season. The original plan was to leave within a week, but the boat has required so much work that we have revised our departure time to about three weeks from now. Word on the seas is that if you're cruising down Mexico, you should be out of here by about November 15th. That's apparently when the weather starts taking a dive. It's already starting to get cold, so we're trying to cut into the things we need to complete. On our list of things to do: we must acquire or build a dinghy with engine mounts for an outboard motor (hopefully hard-bottomed), get new port lights, and mend our mainsail and no.2 genoa jib. Once we finish all this, we should be able to go out of the Long Beach Harbor breakwater, turn left and keep going.

Now that I have some time to type this out, I'll try to go over the recent things that have happened in chronological order. We had a fun little sailing experience on our friend David's boat, the Runaway. It's a racing boat that requires a bit more crew than we had to weigh it down, but it was fun to cruise along in the bay. Here's David waiting for us. Once we got about ten steps closer, he told us to cast off all lines:



Here's a picture of us working REALLY hard on this very trip:



After this little trip, we went straight back to work (this was when we were still on the hard at Dinko's). I climbing the mast to check for corrosion, which netted both a good view for me, and a super sweet picture for you guys:



Dan re-glassed our rudder as well, while we were finishing up at Dinko's and our final paint coats were put on as well as bottom paint and the bootstripe. So here she is in her full painted glory, I know you've been waiting for this folks:



After we finished all that good stuff up, we packed up quickly and got back in the water to reduce our costs. This we did with both of our mothers present. That's Dan's mother on the left there, she was reportedly "waiting for her yacht".



After we got the boat in the water, with the help of Dinko's high tech boat-moving rail system(yes it's a tractor):



We motored back over to Larson's Marina and that's where she rests now.



We took a bit of a day off after all that work by hanging and just reading up a bit on things. I've recently acquired the responsibility of our 4000+ hours marine diesel including the management, maintenance, and repair of. Luckily, Dan told me this as he handed me the book Marine Diesels by Nigel Calder, a very informative author. So I started delving into that a bit as well as the manual for our Westerbeck and changed the fuel filter the next day as Dan reattached the salt water pump. Feeling just so good from our recent diesel fix, we decided to take it out for a ride in the harbor. We motored out, put up the mainsail (the only sail we have) and began our maiden voyage. Sure it may have only been at about 1.5 knots, but it was special.

We manage to head back in just as the wind dies and start slowing down to put ourselves into our slip. As we're almost in, I hop off onto the dock to guide her in as Dan slides the shifter into reverse and gives her a little gas to bring us to a halt. But instead of coming to a slow halt, the Leeway rams into the dock, barely avoiding a metal housing for the shore power, but still scratching up her brand new paint. Little did we know that since the last time we used the reverse gear (less than a month previous) the plate holding the actuator to the manual shifter had become loose, causing it to flail uselessly rather than shift into the reverse gear when solicited to do so. Soon after we pulled her off the dock, we went and fixed that plate, which involved me squeezing into about the smallest space I actually could find on the vessel.

After fixing that, we called it a day and went to work on less strenuous things. But the next day we went right back to work. This time, on our brittle, sun-crazed port lights. They needed to come off, frame and all. It took a very careful procedure to get them off. First one must remove each and every bolt and then every washer (thirty-six in all for each port light):



Then one must very carefully remove them via hammer and chisel, but mostly just hammer:



Our technique, when performed correctly, requires minimal clean up, and surely doesn't bother the neighbors with loud noises:





While tackling the portlights (it is ongoing as of now), we have been frequenting Erik over at T/A Sailmakers. He's a great guy and has been incredibly helpful to us. I recommend him to anyone in need of sailmending or canvaswork in the Long Beach area. His work with us involves several large piles of sails that need to be sorted through, measured, and properly inventoried. We did that for seven hours today and tackled about forty sails. We finished sorting through the spinakkers:



And we only have the pile in the far middle (mainsails) and the far right (jibs) left to do! (est. 130 sails):



Tomorrow, we'll probably finish working on the port lights (removing them with extended blow drying and hammer tapping) and go down to Minney's Yacht Surplus over in Costa Mesa to look for some port lights and maybe a marine head. We also be constantly on the look out for dinghies for sale for cheapo. It'll be fun.