Getting ready for our next adventures

We spent almost 2 weeks visiting with friends and family in Illinois, Pennsylvania and back in the Bay area. Now we are busy getting boat chores done to get ready to head south.

Our project list got delayed due to preparations for the possible visit of Hurricane Joaquin. Fortunately the storm turned but our boat had been prepared for the worst by the boatyard crew.Upon our return we needed to get on top of our project list and get ready for our next adventures.

Many of our boat chores involved fixing things that broke or were not quite correctly installed. We made some significant additions to what we've already done. This post is about the work we're achieving in our work to get the boat ready for new adventures.

The largest chore we're doing is to raise the waterline of the boat. This is not about making the boat ride higher in the water it involves moving the waterline further up the hull. With all the gear, equipment and provisions we've added the boat is sitting lower in the water so the barnacles and slime grow further up the hull. By raising the waterline we get the bottom paint higher up the hull to defeat the contaminant growth on the gelcoat. In addition to the growth slowing down our speed and increasing fuel use, barnacles growing on the hull will eat into the gelcoat and damage the fiberglass. This is a long-term improvement. We discussed doing it last year when we were doing the major outfitting but decided to wait and see how everything worked.

The next major addition that we're doing is to replace the OEM battery charger with one that is much larger. Our OEM charger only providers 40 amps of output and our new one outputs 100 amps. We needed to do this so when we have cloudy windless days and need to run our generator we can charge our batteries faster with less fuel consumption. Also, at a dck when connected to shore power we can completely recharge our batteries in a day where our old charger might not due that.

Other major improvements include replacing the exhaust and engine exhaust water hoses; connecting our FM radio to our TV antenna; gelcoat repairs for the remaining issues from our accident back in July; and some other minor fixes. Earlier this week when I was crawling around in the anchor locker I found that the horseshoe bracket holding the chain plate for our staysail had broken. We will be replacing it and then checking the rig tuning once we're back in the water.

I have quite a list of work to do over this weekend as we hurry to get the boat back in the water. We also want to take this opportunity to refine our inventory of spares and maintenance supplies so that as we go offshore for longer periods we can be self-sufficient.  We also continue to learn more about the boat and how to fix stuff which will enable us to continue traveling with improvised solutions to challenges we may face.

So as we work through past issues we focus on our next adventures and work to ensure success. In a few months we hope to be spending relaxed times in the sun wit all the work behind us although we will always have maintenance to do.